'T^  M  K    LIFE 


Al.LXANT'>FR   DLir.  D 


D. 


GKORGH  SMITH,  C.\.K,   \J    I.;. 

,,'■:;■•.    O''     •  l'!-IE    i.lFt.   •  ■  (HN    V\-II  ;• 'V    f,  !  ,      rv    — 

;.i.<.'V    OF   j'mK  Kon  a  1    .■■■    .1   •. I'il.'CAL   \ ''■'■')   - !"  1  i  1- i'irvr 

..■     . .      -   '■  I  c. 


I  ;i      '  \     INTKOI)!,       u  :V     i'\       '  M 


!ajR,  b.;* 


j  Nj-       r\'V  I      \  t  ,!  r  •  vi  r  .-• 


JA^-i  I  '■•>  C.  \  "u 


■v>s 


■■".;  ;■  •    i» 


i,.i*Si"  v* 


THE    LIFE 


OF 


ALEXANDER  DUFF,  D.D.,  LLD. 


BY 


GEORGE  SMITH,  CLE.,  LL.D.. 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  WILSON,  D.D.,  F.R.S.," 
FELLOW  OF  THE  ROYAL  GEOGRAPHICAL  AND  STAIISTICAL 

SOCIETIES,  ETC. 


WITH    AN    INTRODUCTION    BY    WM.    M.    TAYLOR,  D.D. 
IN     ^     J    VOLUMES. 

WITH  PORTRAITS  BY  JEENS. 


VOL.  I. 


NEW    YORK: 
A.    C.    ARMSTRONG    &    SON, 

TORONTO : 
JAMES  CAMPBELL  &  SON. 


TO 

THE     PEOPLES     OF    INDIA 

IS  INSCRIBED 

THIS  LIFE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONARY 

WHOSE  LATEST   PUBLISHED  WORDS  WERE   THESE: 


*'WnERE7ER  I  WANDER,  WHEREVER  I  STAT,  MY  HEART  IS  IN  INDIA,  IN 
DEEP  SYMPATHY  WITH  ITS  MULTITUDINOUS  INHABITANTS,  AND  IN  EARNEST 
LONGINGS  FOR  THEIR  HIGHEST  WELFARE  IN  TIME  AND  IN  ETERNITTJ* 


tb~'f^V^ 


This  volume  tells  the  story  of  the  earlier  half  of 
Dr.  DufiTs  life  of  nearly  seventy-two  years.  Of  the 
Scottish  Mission  to  India,  which  will  see  its  jubilee 
reached  at  the  close  of  this  year,  the  history  is 
brought  down  to  1843.  The  acknowledgment  of 
the  assistance  of  friends,  which  the  author  has  not 
been  able  to  make  in  the  text,  he  hopes  adequately 
to  express  in  the  Preface  to  the  whole  work,  when 
the  second  volume  shall  appear. 

The  Rev.  Principal  Harper,  D.D.  and  the  Rev. 
George  Lewis  have  been  removed  by  death  as  the 
sheets   have  passed  through  the  press. 


Sebampore  House,  Merchiston, 

Edinburgh,  28th  A^ril,  1879. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER    L 
1 806-1 829. 
The  Boy  and  the  Student 

CHAPTER    II. 

1829. 
The  First  Missionauy  of  the  Cuurch  of  Scotlain. 


CHAPTER    III. 
1830. 


TlIK   Two    SuinVBECKS      . 


PAGES 

1-32 


33-04. 


65-85 


Calcutta  as  it  was 


The  Mine  Prepared 


CHAPTER    IV. 

1830. 

•  *  •  • 

CHAPTER    V 
1830-1831. 


CHAPTER    VL 

i83i-i833- 
The  First  Explosion  and  the  Pour  Converts 


86-103 


104-130 


137-177 


CHAPTER    VII. 
i833-J83S- 
The   Renais-sance    in   India  —  The   English  Language 

AND  the  Church 178-205 

CHAPTER    VIII. 

1833-1835. 
The  Renaissance  in  India — Science  and  Letters  .     200-232 


Vlll 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

1832-1835.  PA0K8 

Woiuc  FOB  Eunoi'KANa,  Eurasians  and  NativI'I  Christians     233-270 


CHAPTER    X. 

•835. 
TiiK  Invalid  and  the  Orator         .        . 


'1-304 


CHAPTER    XL 

1 83 5- 1 836. 


l)l{.    DlIFK   ORdANIZINU 


.     805-33!) 


CHAPTER    XII. 

1837-1839- 


Fishers  op  Men 


.     840-387 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

1 839- 1 840. 
Eqypt — Sinai — TBomiuy — Madras     . 


388-424 


CHAPTER    XIV. 
1841. 
Fighting  the  Governor-General   . 


.     425-441 


CHAPTER    XV. 
1841-1843. 
The  College  and  its  Spiritual  Fruit  . 


.     442-478 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Dr.  Duff  at  Thirty 
Calcutta         . 


Frontispiece 
To  face  page  89 


INTKODUCTION. 


Alexandeii  Ditkf,  as  tlic  poniHal  of  tluH  {idmirable 
niomoir  will  inaki;  a[)par<'iit,  w;ih  one  of  i\w.  most  vun- 
iKMit  of  modern  missi,,iiai'ies.  TTis  name  will  go  down 
to  posterity  witli  those  of  William  IJurns  and  David 
Livingstone,  as  togetlun*  constituting  "the  thrcse  migh- 
tics"  of  the  noble  band  of  Scottish  worthies  whose  la- 
bors in  the  fields  of  heathenism  have  given  lustre  to  the 
amials  of  our  century.  Others  might  be  ranked  among 
the  thirty ;  but  they  were  "  the  first  three,"  each  of 
whom  was  distinguished  by  making  a  new  departure  in 
the  great  enteiprise  to  which  they  had  all  devoted 
themselves. 

Livingstone  saw  that  if  anything  was  to  be  really 
done  for  Africa,  the  slave-trade — that  open  sore  of  the 
world — must  be  got  rid  of,  and  in  order  to  secure  that, 
as  well  as  other  things  of  importance,  he  entered  upon 
these  exploring  expeditions  which  have  made  his  name 
imperishable.  Burns,  upon  perceiving  the  prejudice  of 
the  Chinese  against  foreigners  of  every  sort,  and  finding 
his  European  dress  a  hindrance  in  the  prosecution  of  his 
work,  deliberately  adopted  the  costume  of  the  people 
among  whom  he  labored,  became  as  a  Chinaman  to  the 
Chinese,  and  left  a  name  at  the  mention  of  which  t\Q 
hearts  of  multitudes,  both  in  Scotland  and  in  China,  are 

ix 


X  INTRODUCTION. 

quickened  as  Ly  some  potent  spell,  for  they  knew  Mm 
as  their  spiritual  father.  Duif,  seeing  that  the  false 
science  of  the  so-called  sacred  books  of  India  was  in- 
separably connected  with  their  religious  teaching,  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  thorough  education  of  the 
Hindoos  would  be  subversive  of  the  native  superstitions. 
He,  therefore,  not  A\nthout  the  risk  of  being  misunder- 
stood by  the  committee  at  home,  deliberately  adopted 
what  may  be  called  the  educational  plan.  How  that 
was  carried  out  by  him,  and  the  influence  which  he  ex- 
erted on  education  in  India  through  Lord  William 
Bentinck,  Sir  Chai-les  Trevellyan,  and  the  young  com- 
missioner ^mIio  was  afterwards  to  become  better  known 
as  Lord  Macaulay,  is  set  forth  with  sufficient  distinct- 
ness in  these  j)ages.  He  was  an  uncompromising  ad- 
vocate of  that  which  he  believed  to  be  right,  and  his 
eloquence,  alike  in  Calcutta  and  in  Scotland,  often  car- 
ried all  before  it.  On  his  first  return  to  his  native  land 
he  was  virtually  put,  by  the  objections  of  many,  upon 
his  own  defence,  and  the  speech  which  he  delivered  on 
that  occasion,  in  the  General  Assembly,  has  always  been 
referred  to  as  one  of  the  grandest  specimens  of  sacred 
eloquence.  The  ten  years'  conflict  was  then  at  its 
height,  but  Moderates  and  Evangelicals  alike  laid  down 
their  arms  to  listen,  even  as  the  hostile  hosts  at  Tala- 
vera  forgot  their  enmity  as  together  they  drank  from 
the  brook  that  flowed  between  their  lines. 

Thus  the  work  of  Duff  was  as  important  among  the 
churches  of  his  native  land  as  it  was  in  India.  His 
zeal  and  oratory  kindled  an  amazixig  enthusiasm  for  the 


PsTRODUCTION.  XI 

niissionaiy  cause,  and  liis  simple,  fervent  piety  ahvays 
preaclied  a  silent  sermon  of  great  power.  His  visit  to 
tlie  manse  of  Ellon  wrought  such  a  change  on  the  Rev. 
James  Robertson — the  leader  of  the  Moderate  party  in 
the  church — that  Robertson's  biographer  does  not  hesi- 
tate to  speak  of  it  as  a  conversion ;  and  wherever  he 
went  he  was  recognized  as  being  in  veiy  deed  "  a  man 
of  God." 

His  labors  in  America  are  yet  remembered  with 
gratitude  and  admiration  by  multitudes  among  us,  wlio 
will  be  glad  to  have  former  impressions  recalled  by  the 
account  which  is  here  given  of  iiis  visit  to  oar  laiid. 
And  students  of  Scottish  ecclesiastical  history  will  find 
in  this  biography,  which  spans  the  fifty  years  between 
Chalmers's  professorship  of  Moral  Philosophy  at  St. 
Andrews,  and  the  breaking  up  of  the  union  negotia- 
tions between  the  disestablished  Presbyterian  churches, 
rich  material  for  their  purpose. 

We  need  not  do  more  than  refer  to  the  labors  of 
Duif  in  later  yeai's  as  the  Convener  of  the  Foreign  Mis- 
sion Committee  of  the  Free  Church,  and  the  first  Profes- 
sor of  Evangelistic  Theology  in  its  college.  To  the  last 
he  was  a  man  of  power,  tall  and  stalwai't  in  form, 
easily  distinguishable,  in  later  years,  by  his  flowing 
beard  of  silvery  whiteness,  he  was  always  an  object  of 
interest  to  the  visitor  to  the  Free  Assembly,  and  though 
the  volcanic  fire  of  his  old  eloquence  had  largely  burnt 
itself  out,  it  occasionally  flamed  forth  even  then  in  such 
a  way  as  to  give  one  some  idea  of  its  former  brightness. 
It  is  always  difticult  to  convey  an  ade<piate  impression 


Xll  INTRODUCTION. 

of  eloquence  to  those  who  have  not  heard  it,  and  it  may 
be  that  tlie  accounts  here  given  of  that  of  Duff  may 
seem  to  be  exaggerated.  But  let  the  jeader  remember 
til  at  the  essence  of  oratory  is  too  volatile  and  subtle  to 
linger  on  the  printed  page.  A  far  better  test  than  the 
reported  speech  is  found  in  the  permanent  effects  which 
it  produced,  and  judged  by  that  tlie  eloquence  of  Duff 
must  have  been  second  only  to  that  of  Chalmers ;  for  if 
the  Free  Churcli  of  Scotland  was  tlie  result  of  the  one, 
the  Indian  Missions,  both  of  the  Established  and  Free 
Churches,  were  as  really  the  fruit  of  the  other. 

But  enough.  It  seems  to  me  to  savor  of  presumption 
that  I  should  even  thus  allude  to  one  whose  "  praise  is 
in  all  the  churolies,"  and  my  only  apology  for  writing 
tliese  sentences  must  be  that  I  am  glad  of  having  my 
name  associated  in  any  lowliest  manner  with  that  of  one 
of  the  greatest  missionaries  of  his  age. 

W.  M.  T. 

December,  i879. 


LIFE 


OF 


ALEXANDER   DUFE,  D.D.,  LL.D. 


CHAPTER    I. 

1806-1829. 
THE   BOY  AND    THE    STUDENT, 

Alexander  DuflTs  spiritual  Ancestry. — The  Prince  of  the  English 
Evangfclicals  and  the  Prince  of  Llissionaries. — James  Duff"  and 
Jean  Rattray. — Auchnaliyle  and  the  Cottage  at  Balnakeilly. — 
]jcn-i-vrackie,  Pitloclirie,  and  Killiecrankie  Pass.  —  The  Duff 
Chuich  and  tlio  Duff  Tombstone. — Portrait  of  a  Cottage  Patri- 
arch.— Dugald  Buchanan  and  David  Hume. — Gaelic  poems  of 
"The  Skull,"  and  "The  Day  of  Judgment."— Alexander  Duff's 
First  Dream.  —  The  Call  in  his  Second  Vision. — Early  School- 
masfers. — Lost  in  the  Snowstorm  of  1819. — A  year  with  Moncur 
at  Perth  Grammar  School. — Influence  of  "  The  Paradise  Lost." — 
St.  Andrews  University  as  it  was. — Pictures  of  the  Student  by 
surviving  Contemporaries. — Five  years  of  Thomas  Chiilmers. — 
The  St.  Andrews  University  ^lissionary  Society.  —  Letter  to 
Dr.  Chalmers. — Alexander  Duff",  M.A. — Licensed  to  preach  the 
Gospel. 

rjlHE  spiritual  ancestry  of  Alexander  Duflf  it  is  not 
-'-  difficult  to  trace  to  Charles  Simeon.  Heredity, 
even  on  its  physical  side,  is  a  mystery  which  modern 
science  has  as  yet  failed  to  explain.  Much  more  difficult 
is  it  to  discover  all  that  is  comprehended  in  the  in- 
fluences through  which  the  character  receives  its  motive 
power  and  peculiar  colouring.     It  was  the  remark  of 

6 


2  LIFE   OF  DR.    DUFF.  1806. 

Duff  himself,  when,  in  the  fulness  of  his  fame,  ho 
solemnly  congratulated  a  young  friend  on  a  firstboi'n 
son,  that  in  nothing  is  the  sovereignty  of  God  so  clearly 
seen  as  in  the  birth  of  a  child ;  the  fact,  the  sex,  the 
circumstances,  the  bent.  To  be  at  all,  is  much ;  to  be 
this  rather  than  that  is,  to  the  individual,  more  :  but  to 
be  the  subject  and  the  channel  of  a  diviuo  force  such 
as  has  made  the  men  who  have  reformed  the  world, 
in  the  days  from  the  apostlcB  to  tlie  greatest  modern 
missionaries,  is  so  very  much  more,  that  we  may  well 
look  in  every  case  for  the  signs  which  lie  about  their 
infancy.  In  this  case  these  signs  are  near  the  sur- 
face. It  was  through  the  prince  of  the  Evangelicals  of 
the  Church  of  England  that,  unconsciously  to  both, 
grace  flowed,  at  one  remove,  to  the  distant  Highland 
boy  of  the  Presbyterian  kirk,  who  became  the  prince 
of  Evangelical  missionaries.  And  the  grace  was  the 
same  in  both  for  it  was  marked  by  the  catholicity  of 
true  Evangelicalism,  which  is  not  always  found  in 
the  sectarian  divisions  and  strifes  of  the  Eeformed 
Churches. 

It  was  just  after  that  conversation  of  his  which 
proved  to  be  the  foundation  of  the  Church  Missionary 
Society  that,  in  1790,  the  accomplished  English  clergy- 
man who  filled  the  pulpit  of  Trinity  Church,  Cambridge, 
was  induced  to  make  his  first  tour  through  Scotland. 
At  Dunkeld,  Simeon  tells  us,  his  horses  were  at  the 
door  to  take  liim  on  to  the  Pass  of  Killiccrankie,  with 
the  intention  of  at  once  turning  back  to  that  gate  of 
the  Highlands  in  order  to  hurry  on  to  Glasgow.  But 
"  I  felt  myself  poorly,  I  ordered  them  back  and  pro- 
ceeded to  Killiccrankie  the  next  day.  At  Moulin,  a 
village  four  miles  from  K.,  I  called  to  see  a  Mr.  Stew- 
art." In  that  visit  was  the  seed  of  Alexander  Duffs 
higher  life.  Having  seen  the  pass,  Simeon  returned  to 
assist  Mr.   Stewart,  who  was  the  parish  minister,  at 


yl^t.  I.         CHARLES   SIMEON   AND   ALEXANDER   DUFF.  3 

the  Lord's  supper.  Their  intercourse  resulted  in  an 
iinmediate  change  in  the  preaching  of  a  man  of  high 
repute  for  amiabiUty  and  learning,  but,  like  the  young 
Cliahners  afterwards,  '*very  defective  in  his  view  of 
the  gospel  and  in  his  cxporie-  co  of  its  power."  From 
that  moment  Stewart  ''  changed  the  strain  of  his 
preacliing,  determining  to  know  nothing  among  his 
people  but  Jesur  Christ  and  Ilim  crucified." 

Years  afterwards,  as  Simeon  looked  back  on  that 
visit  to  Scotland,  and  saw  how  in  Moulin,  at  Dingwall, 
and  then  in  the  Canongatc  of  Edinburgh,  Dr.  Stewart 
was  made  a  living  power  to  the  souls  of  men  and 
women,  he  blessed  God  for  the  indisposition  which  had 
kept  him  back  at  Duukeld,  and  so  liad  sent  him  to 
MouHn.  This,  and  the  results  of  his  preaching  for 
Dr.  Colquhoun  in  Leitli,  led  the  Evangelical  whom 
the  University  then  despised  and  his  own  brethren 
condemned  for  preaching  in  non- Anglican  churches,  to 
write,  "amongst  the  many  blessings  which  God  vouch- 
safed to  me  in  those  journeys,  there  were  two  in  par- 
ticular for  which  I  have  reason  to  adore  His  name." 
After  this,  Simeon  sent  out  to  India  the  men,  liko 
David  Brown  and  Henry  Martyn,  who,  as  chaplains 
and  missionaries,  formed  the  salt  of  the  infant  empire. 
He  soon  saw,  also,  one  of  tlie  noblest  of  evangelizing 
agencies  established,  the  Church  Missionary  Society ; 
and  he  had  helped  the  London  Missionary  Society,  fruit- 
ful parent  of  similar  organizations  in  Great  Britain, 
America  and  Germany.  But  the  far-reaching  conse- 
quences of  that  day's  work  in  Moulin  he  had  not 
dared  to  dream  of. 

Among  Stewart's  parishioners,  of  whom  he  had  told 
Simeon  there  are  "  few  real  Christians  whom  I  can 
number  in  my  parish,"  were  two  young  people,  who 
were  not  long  in  experiencing  the  new  electric  thrill 
which  showed  itself  in  more  than  one  revival  such  as  a 


4  LIFE    OF    DR.    DUFF.  1 806. 

few  of  the  most  aged  villagers  recall  with  fond  memory 
at  the  present  day.  James  Duff  and  Jean  Kattray 
were  under  seventeen  when  Simeon  preached  wliat  he 
at  the  time  bewailed  as  his  barren  and  dull  sermon. 
Gaelic  was  the  prevailing  language  of  the  district ; 
few  knew  English.  But  what  the  English  of  Simeon 
began,  the  Gaelic  of  Stewart  continued,  and  James 
Duff  was  equally  master  ol  both  languages.  In  due 
time  he  married  Jean  Uattray  and  took  her  to  the 
farm  of  Auchnahyle.  There  Alexander  Duff  was  born 
to  them,  on  the  25th  April,  1806.  Removing  thence 
soon  after  somewhat  nearer  Moulin,  the  boy's  child- 
hood and  early  youth  was  spent  in  and  around  a 
picturesque  cottage  on  the  estate  of  Baluakeilly.  No 
trace  remains  of  the  old  house  of  Auchnahyle,  a  new 
one  having  been  built  on  its  site.  All  the  missionary's 
early  reminiscences  were  identified  with  the  cottage 
at  Balnakeilly,  still  standing  and  but  little  changed, 
among  the  woods  that  slope  up  from  the  old  north 
road  before  it  enters  Moulin  from  Dunkeld. 

And  here,  as  he  himself  once  wrote,  "  amid  scenery 
of  unsurpassed  beauty  and  grandeur,  I  acquired  early 
tastes  and  impulses  which  have  animated  and  in- 
fluenced me  through  life."  To  its  natural  beauty  of 
hill,  wood  and  water,  on  which  the  artist's  eye  loves  to 
rest,  there  is  now  added  the  memory  of  him  whose 
whole  genius  was  coloured  by  the  surroundings,  and 
who,  when  the  shadow  of  death  was  darkening  over 
him,  delighted  to  recall  the  dear  father-house.  It  is 
the  centre  of  Scotland.  Rising  gently  some  two 
miles  to  the  north-east,  Ben-i-vrackie  reaches  a  height 
of  2,800  feet.  Thence  the  young  eye  can  descry 
Arthur's  Seat  which  guards  Edinburgh,  and,  in  the 
far  north  of  Aberdeenshire,  the  mightier  Bens  of 
Nevis  and  Macdhui.  The  house  is  beautifully  placed 
in  an  open  glade,  with  a  brattling  mountain  stream 


JEt.  I.         DUFf's   DESCRimON   OF   HIS    BIRTnPLACE.  5 

on  either  side,  and  a  wealth  of  weeping  birch,  ash, 
lurch,  and  young  oak  trees,  which,  in  the  slanting 
niitumn  sun,  seem  to  surround  the  cottage  with  a 
setting  of  gold.  Twice  in  after  years,  with  a  loving 
and  eloquent  fondness,  was  he  led  to  describe  the 
place  and  the  father  who  trained  lim  there.  When 
in  Calcutta,  in  18G0,  ho  observed  in  the  Witness  news- 
paper an  advertisement  soliciting  subscriptions  for  a 
new  Free  Church  for  the  parish,  which  the  altered 
times  made  it  desirable  to  erect  in  the  neighbouring 
railway  town  of  Pitlochrie,  he  thus  wrote  in  a  public 
appeal : — 

"  The  parish  of  Moulin,  fairly  within  the  Grampians, 
embraces  the  central  portion  of  the  great  and  noble 
valley  of  Athole,  watered  by  the  Tummel  and  the 
Garry,  with  several  glens  and  straths  stretching  con- 
siderably to  the  north.  The  great  north  road  from 
Dunkeld  to  Inverness  passes  through  the  southerly 
section  of  the  parish,  along  the  banks  of  the  fore- 
named  rivers.  About  a  mile  to  the  north  of  this  road, 
and  wholly  concealed  from  it  by  intervening  knolls  and 
ridges,  lies  the  village  of  Moulin,  in  a  hollow  or  basin, 
once  partly  the  bed  of  a  lake,  but  now  drained  and 
turned  into  fertile  corn-fields,  with  the  ruins  of  an  old 
castle  in  the  middle  of  them.  Formerly  the  half, 
probably  the  greater  half  of  the  population  lay  to  the 
north,  north-west,  and  north-east  of  the  village.  But 
things  are  very  much  altered  now.  From  the  enlarge- 
ment of  farms  entire  hamlets  have  been  removed,  and 
the  cottars  in  most  villages  in  these  directions  greatly 
reduced  in  number ;  while  one  glen  has  been  Avholly, 
and  more  than  one  to  a  considerable  extent  depopu- 
lated, to  make  way  for  sheep-walks." 

The  Pitlochrie  portion  of  his  native  parish  he  de- 
scribed as  "  slightly  elevated  on  rolling  ridges  above 
the  Tummei,  which,  after  its  junction  with  the  Garry 


6  LIFE   OP  DR.    DUFP.  i8o6. 

a  littlo  above,  flows  on  to  join  tUo  Tay  a  few  miles 
fartlier  down ;  with  the  country  all  around  richly 
wooded,  while  free  from  all  marshy  ground  and 
cultivated  like  a  garden ;  encompussed  on  all  sides, 
and  at  no  great  distance,  with  swelling  hills  and  craggy 
precipices,  and  the  sharp  pointed  peaks  of  the  lofty 
Ben-i-vrackie  towering  up  almost  immediately  behind 
it;  placed,  also,  within  a  mile  or  two  of  the  celebrated 
Pass  of  Killiecrankie,  which  is  bounded  on  the  east 
by  Fascally,  with  its  enchanting  scenery  including  the 
Falls  of  Tummel,  and  on  the  west  by  the  battle-field 
on  which  Lord  Dundee,  '  the  Bloody  Clavers,'  the 
relentless  scourge  of  Scotland's  true  patriot  worthies, 
the  heroes  of  the  Covenant,  and  the  last  hope  of  the 
Stewart  dynasty,  fell  mortally  wounded  in  the  hour  of 
victory;  and  which  itself  furnishes  to  the  true  lover 
of  nature's  works  a  variety  of  views  altogether  un- 
surpassed in  their  combination  of  the  beautiful,  the 
picturesque,  the  romantic,  and  the  sublime." 

The  Duff  Church  now  stands  in  Pitlochrie  as  the 
solitary  memorial  there  of  the  man  who  has  given  a 
new  and  higher  interest  to  that  portion  of  the  Gram- 
pian range  than  any  of  its  sons.  No ;  not  the  only 
memorial.  There  is  another,  a  tombstone  in  the 
Moulin  kirk-yard,  "  erected  as  a  grateful  tribute  to 
the  memory  of  his  pious  parents  ...  by  their  af- 
fectionate son,  Alexander  Duff."  When,  early  in 
1848,  he  heard  in  Calcutta  of  his  father's  death,  he 
sent  to  Dr.  Tweedie  a  prose  elegy  on  that  cottage 
patriarch,  which,  undesignedly,  enables  us  to  trace  the 
spiritual  influence  as  it  had  flowed  through  Simeon, 
Stewart,  and  the  good  old  Highlander  to  the  son, 
who  had  been  then  for  nearly  twenty  years  the  fore- 
most missionary  in  India. 

*'  If  ever  son  had  reason  to  thank  God  for  the 
prayers,  the   instructions,  the  counsels,  and  the  con- 


^.t.  I.         duff's  description  of  his  father.  7 

sistont  examples  of  a  devoutly  pious  father,  I  am  that 
son.     Thougli  sent  from  home  for    my    education    at 
the  early  age  of  eight,  and  thougli  very  little  at  homo 
ever  after,   the  sacred  and   awakening   lessons  of  in- 
fancy were  never  wholly  forgotten;  and,  in  tlie  absence 
of   moulding    influences    of    regenerating    grace,    the 
feni'  of  offending  a  man  who  inspired  me  in  earliest 
boyhood  with  sentiments  of  profoundest  reveretico  and 
love  towards  himself,  as  a  man  of  God,  was  for  many 
a  year  the  overmastering  principle  which   restrained 
my  erring  footsteps  and  saved  mo  from  many  of  tho 
overt  follies  and  sins  of  youth.      Oiiginally  aroused  to 
a  sense  of  sin  and  the  necessity  of  salvation,  when  a 
young  man,  under  the  remarkable  ministry  of  the  lato 
Dr.  Stewart  of  Moulin,  and  afterwards  of  Dingwall, 
and  the  Canon  gate,  my  father  was  led  to  flee  for  refiigo 
to  the  hope  set  before  him  in  the  gospel.     And   tho 
spark  of  light  and  life  then  enkindled  in  his  soul,  far 
from  becoming  dim  amid  the  still  surviving  corruptions 
of  the  '  old  man '  within,  and  the  thick  fogs  of  a  carnal 
earthly  atmosphere  without,  continued  ever  since  to 
shine   more    and  more  with    increasing  intensity  and 
vividness.    In  the  days  of  his  health  and  strength,  and 
subsequently  as  of  ten  as  health  and  strength  permitted, 
he  was  wont  to  labour  much  for  the  spiritual  improve- 
ment of  his  neighbourhood,  by  the  kee[)ing  or  super- 
intending of  Sabbath  schools,  and  the  holding  of  weekly 
meetings,  at  his  own  house  or  elsewhere,  for  prayer 
and  scriptural  exposition.      In  prayer  he  was  indeed 
mighty — appearing  at  times  as  if  in  a  rapture,  caught 
up  to  the  third  heavens  and  in  full  view  of  the  beatific 
vision.     In  the  practical  exposition  and  home-thrusting 
enforcement  of  Scripture  truth  he  was  endowed  with 
an  uncommon  gift.     In  appealing   to  the  conscience, 
and  in  expatiating  on  the  bleeding,  dying  love  of  the 
Saviour  he  displayed  a  power  before  which  many  have 


8  LIFE    OP   DR.    DUFF.  1806. 

been  melted  and  subdued — findinj*  immediate  relief 
only  in  sobs  and  tears — and  being  ecpially  fluent  in  the 
Gaelic  and  Knglisli  languages,  he  could  readily  adapt 
himself  to  the  requirements  of  such  mixed  audiences 
as  the  [lighlam'.i  usually  furnish. 

"  lu  addressing  the  young  ho  was  wont  to  manifest 
a  wiiming  and  affectionate  tenderness,  which  soon 
riveted  the  attention  and  captivated  the  feelings.  His 
very  heart  seemed  to  yearn  through  his  eyes  as  he 
imploi'Cil  them  to  beware  of  the  enticement  of  sinners, 
and  pointed  to  the  outstretched  arms  of  the  Redeemer. 
Seizing  on  some  Bible  narrative  or  incident  or  miracle 
or  parable,  or  proverb  or  emblem,  ho  would  *  picture 
out '  one  or  other  of  these  so  as  to  leave  a  clear 
and  definite  image  on  the  youthful  mind.  And  when 
he  fairly  entered  on  the  full  spirit  of  some  stirring 
theme,  such  as  Abraham's  offering  of  his  son  Isaac,  or 
Jesus  weei)ing  over  infatuated  Jerusalem ;  or  when, 
piercing  through  the  outer  folds,  lie  laid  bare  the 
latent  significance  of  some  rich  and  beautiful  emblem, 
such  as  the  *  Rose  of  Sharon,'  the  '  Lily  of  the  Valley,* 
or  the  great  '  Sun  of  Righteousness,'  his  diction 
would  swell  into  somewhat  of  dramatic  energy,  and 
his  illustrations  into  somewhat  of  the  vividness  and 
sensible  reality ;  while  his  voice,  respondent  to  the 
thrilling  within,  would  rise  into  something  like  the 
undulations  of  a  lofty  but  irregular  chant,  and  so 
vibrate  athwart  the  mental  imagery  of  the  heart,  and 
leave  an  indelible  impression  there. 

*'  Next  to  the  Bible  my  father's  chief  delight  was  in 
studying  the  works  of  our  old  divines,  of  which,  in 
time-worn  editions,  he  had  succeeded  in  accumulat- 
ing a  goodly  number.  These,  he  was  wont  to  say, 
contained  more  of  the  '  sap  and  marrow  of  the  gospel' 
and  had  about  them  more  of  the  *  fragrance  and  fla- 
vour of  Paradise,'  than  aught  more  recently  produced. 


^t,  ,.  A   COTTAGE    TATRIAnOn.  9 

Ilalyburtoii's  'Memoirs'  was  a  prime  favouriho;  but 
of  all  nieroly  human  productious,  no  one  secMUod  to 
stir  and  animato  his  whole  soul  like  the  *  Cloud  of 
Witnesses.'  And  he  took  a  special  pains  to  saturate 
the  minds  of  his  children  with  its  contents.  Ills 
habit  was  orrlly  to  tell  us  of  the  manner  in  which  the 
Papacy  corrupted  God's  word  and  persecuted  God's 
people.  lie  would  show  us  pictures  of  the  enginery 
and  processes  of  cruel  torture.  lie  then  would  givo 
some  short  biographical  notice  of  one  or  other  of 
the  suffering  worthies ;  and  last  of  all  conclude  with 
reading  some  of  the  more  striking  passages  in  their 
*  Last  Words  and  Dying  Testimonies.'  To  tliis  early- 
training  do  I  mainly  owe  my  *  heart-hatred '  of 
popery,  with  any  spiritual  insight  which  I  possess 
into  its  subtle  and  malignant  genius,  its  unchanged 
and  unchangeable  anti-christian  virulence. 

"  During  his  latter  days,  his  answer  to  every  personal 
inquiry  was,  '  I  am  waiting  till  my  blessed  Master  call 
me  to  Himself.'  His  unsparing  exposure  and  denun- 
ciation of  the  follies,  levities  and  vanities  of  a  giddy 
and  sinful  world  subjected  him,  in  an  uncommon 
degree,  to  the  sneers,  the  ridicule,  the  contempt  and 
the  calumny  of  the  ungodly.  But  like  his  Divino 
Master,  when  reviled  he  strove  not  to  suffer  himself 
to  revile  again.  His  wonted  utterance  under  such 
trials  was,  '  Poor  creatures,  they  are  to  be  pitied,  for 
they  know  not  what  spirit  they  are  of ;'  or,  '  Ah  !  well, 
it  is  only  another  reason  why  I  should  remember  them 
more  earnestly  in  prayer.  The  day  of  judgment  will 
set  all  right.'  In  the  sharpness  and  clearness  with 
which  he  drew  the  line  between  the  merely  expedient 
and  the  absolutely  right  and  true  ;  in  his  stern  adhesion 
to  principle  at  all  hazards  ;  in  his  ineffable  loathing 
for  temporizing  and  compromise,  in  any  shape  or  "orm 
where  the  interests  of  *  Zion's  King  and  Zion's  cause' 


10  LIFE   OF   DE.   DUFF.  1814. 

were  concerned ;  in  his  energy  of  spirit,  promptness  of 
decision,  and  unbending  sturdiliood  of  cliaracter;  in 
tlio  Abraliam-liko  cast  of  his  faith,  which  manifested 
itself  in  its  directness,  sii  ipHcity,  and  strength — in  all 
these  and  other  respects  he  alwoys  appeared  to  mo  to 
realize  fully  as  much  of  my  own  beau-ideal  of  the 
ancient  martyr  or  hero  of  the  Covenant  as  any  other 
man  I  ever  knew.  Indeed,  had  ho  lived  in  the  early 
ages  of  persecution,  or  in  Covenanting  times,  my  per- 
suasion is  tliat  ho  would  have  been  among  the  fore- 
most in  fearlessly  facing  the  tyrant  and  the  torture, 
the  scaffold  and  the  stake.  Oh  that  a  double  portion 
of  his  spirit  v/ero  mine,  and  that  the  mantle  of  his 
graces  would  fall  upon  mo  !  " 

This  history  will  show  how  richly  the  prayer  was 
answered;  this  letter  itself  does  so.  But  tlic  pictures 
of  the  "  Cloud  of  Witnesses"  wero  not  all  that  fired 
the  imngiuation  of  the  Highland  boy.  Like  Carey 
with  liis  maps  of  the  heathen  world,  the  father  spoko 
to  his  children  from  such  representations  of  Jugganath 
and  the  gods  of  India  as  were  rarely  met  with  at  that 
time.  On  another  occasion  the  son  thus  traced  tho 
specially  missionary  influences  which  surrounded  him 
as  a  child  :  "  Into  a  general  knowledge  of  the  objects 
and  progress  of  modern  missions  I  was  initiated 
from  my  earliest  youth  by  my  revered  father,  whoso 
catholic  spirit  rejoiced  in  tracing  the  triumph  of  tho 
gospel  in  different  lands,  and  in  connection  with  the 
different  branches  of  the  Christian  Church.  Pictures 
of  Jugganath  and  other  heathen  idols  ho  was  wont 
to  exhibit,  accompanying  the  exhibition  with  copious 
explanations,  well  fitted  to  create  a  feeling  of  horror 
towards  idolatry  and  of  compassion  towards  the  poor 
blinded  idolaters,  and  intermixing  the  whole  with 
statements  of  tho  love  of  Jesus." 

Another  ^f    Alexander  Duff's    early  and  constant 


^^t.  8.  CELTIC   INFLUENCES.  II 

sclioolmastcrs  out  of  school  was  the  Gaelic  poet, 
j)ii<';ild  Buchanan,  catechist  in  the  neighbouring 
liannoch  a  century  before,  who  has  been  well  de- 
scribed as  a  sort  of  Highland  repetition  of  John 
Ihmyan  *  in  his  spiritual  experiences.  The  fire,  the 
t^low,  of  the  missionary's  genius  was  Celtic  by  nature 
and  by  training.  The  fuel  that  kept  the  fire  from 
smouldering  away  in  a  passive  pensiveness  was  the 
prophetic  denunciation,  varied  only  by  the  subtle  irony, 
of  poems  like  "  Latha  Bhreitheanais  " — Tlie  Dan  of 
Jinhimeid,  and  "  An  Chiigeann  "—The  Sl-iilL  The 
boy's  great  and  fearful  deliglit  was  to  hear  the  Gaelic 
lamentations  and  pasans  of  Buchanan^  which  have  at- 
tained a  popidarity  second  only  to  the  misty  visions 
of  Ossian,  read  or  rehearsed  by  his  father  and  others 
who  had  committed  them  to  memory.  Buchanan  is 
the  man  who,  when  challenged  by  David  Hume  to 
quote  language  equal  in  sublimity  to  Shakespeare's 
well-known  lines  beginning  "  The  cloud-capt  towers, 
the  gorgeous  palaces,"  gravely  recited  the  Revelation 
which  opens,  "  I  saw  a  Great  AVhitc  Throne,"  when 
the  sceptic,  admitting  its  superiority,  eagerly  inquired 
as  to  its  author  ! 

The  bard  of  Rannoch  moralizes  in  lines  some  of 
which,  as  translated  by  Professor  l^lackie,  we  quote, 
from  their  applicability  to  liim  whom  they  so 
influenced : — 

"  I  sat  all  alono, 

By  a  cold  grey  stone, 
And  behold  a  skull  lay  on  the  ground ! 
I  took  in  my  hand,  and  ])iLiful  scanned 

Its  ruin  all  round  and  round. 

9|(  :ic  4(-  ;|C  9|( 


*  ProfcsRoi*  J.  S.  T3Iaclvio  on  The  Laiujuago  and  Literature  of  the 
Sculttsh  lHjhlands.     187G, 


12  LTFE    OP   DR.   DUrP.  1814. 

"  Or  wert  thou  a  teacher 

Of  truth  and  a  preacher, 
With  niossage  of  mercy  to  tell  j 

With  an  arm  swift  and  strong 

To  pull  back  the  throng 
That  headlong  were  plunging  to  hell  ? 

*  41  «  ♦  « 

"  Or  wert  thou  a  wight 

That  strove  for  the  right, 
With  God  for  thy  guide  iu  thy  doing  ? 

Though  now  thou  lie  there 

All  bleached  and  bare. 
In  the  blast  a  desolate  ruin, 

"  From  the  tomb  thou  shalt  rise 

And  mount  to  the  skies. 
When  the  trump  of  the  judgment  shall  bray ; 

Thy  body  of  sin 

Thou  shalt  slip  like  a  skin. 
And  cast  all  corruption  away, 

"  When  in  glory  divine 

The  Kedeemer  shall  shine. 
The  hosts  of  His  people  to  gather, 

When  the  trumpet  hath  blared. 

Like  an  eagle  repaired 
Thou  shalfc  rise  to  the  home  of  thy  Father." 

The  more  weird  and  alarming  strains  of  The  Day 
of  Judgment  so  filled  the  boy's  fancy  that,  when  he 
first  left  home  for  the  Lowlands,  he  one  night  dreamed 
he  saw  the  signs  of  the  approaching  doom.  In 
vision  he  beheld  nmnbers  without  number  summoned 
where  the  Judge  was  seated  on  the  Great  White 
Throne.  He  saw  the  human  race  advance  in  suc- 
cession to  the  tribunal,  he  heard  sentence  pro- 
nounced upon  men — some  condemned  to  everlasting 
punishment,  others  ordained  to  everlasting  life.      He 


^t,  8.  HIS   VISIONS   AND   HIS   CALL.  13 

was  seized  with  an  indescribablo  terror,  uncertain 
what  his  own  fate  would  be.  The  doubt  became  so 
terrible  as  to  convulse  his  very  frame.  AVlien  his  turn 
for  sentence  drew  near,  the  dreamer  awoke  shivering 
verj''  violently.  The  experience  left  an  indelible  im- 
pression on  his  mind.  It  threw  him  into  earnest 
prayer  for  pardon,  and  was  followed  by  what  he  long 
after  described  as  something  like  the  assurance  of 
acceptance  through  the  atoning  blood  of  his  Lord  and 
Saviour  Jesus  Christ. 

The  next  harvest  vacation  was  marked  by  another 
experience  of  a  similar  kind,  in  which  those  who 
keep  the  ear  of  the  soul  open  for  every  whisper  of 
the  divine,  will  read  a-prophetio  call  in  the  light  of 
the  boy's  future.  He  had  not  long  before  narrowly 
escaped  drowning  in  tlie  more  easterly  of  the  two 
streams  around  the  cottage,  having  been  drawn 
into  it  as  he  was  lifting  out  water  from  the  swollen 
torrent,  and  swirled  under  the  rustic  bridge.  The 
more  peaceful  westerly  burn  was  the  scene  of  his 
second  vision.  He  dreamed,  as  he  lay  on  its  banks 
among  the  blae-berries  musing  alone,  that  there  shone 
in  the  distance  a  brightness  surpas-^ing  that  of  the 
sun.  By-and-bye  from  the  great  ligat  there  seemed 
to  approach  him  a  magnificent  chariot  of  gold 
studded  with  gems,  drawn  by  fiery  horses.  The 
glory  overawed  him.  At  last  the  heavenly  chariot 
reached  his  side,  and  from  its  open  window  the 
Almighty  God  looked  out  and  addressed  to  him,  in 
the  mildest  tones,  the  words,  "Come  up  hither;  I 
have  work  for  thee  to  do."  In  the  effort  to  rise  he 
awoke  with  astonishment,  and  told  the  dream  in  all 
its  details  to  his  parents.  Not  long  before  his  death, 
he  repeated  it  in  this  fcrtn  to  his  grandson,  so  deep 
and  lasting  had  been  the  impression.  Such  a  call,  be 
it  the  prevision  of  fancy  or  the  revelation  of  a  gracious 


14  LIFE    OP   DR.    DUFF.  1817. 

(Icsliiiy,  was  a  fitting  commencement  of  Alexander 
Duff's  career,  and  a  very  real  preparation  of  liim  for 
the  work  lie  had  to  do. 

The  parish  "dominie"  of  Moulin  was  an  exception- 
ally useless  teacher,  even  in  those  days  and  under  an 
"  indifferent "  Presbytery.  Amiable,  ingenious,  and 
even  learned,  he  divided  his  time  between  the  repair  of 
watches  and  violins  durino:  school  hours  when  the  elder 
children  heard  the  lessons  of  the  younger,  and  fishing 
in  the  Tummel  when  his  wife  heard  all  read  the  Bible 
in  the  kitchen.  A  father  of  James  Duff's  intelligence 
and  earnestness  was  sorely  perplexed  when,  in  1814,  a 
friend  invited  him  to  send  Alexander  to  a  school 
between  Dunkeld  and  Perth,  which  the  neighbouring 
farmers,  ensfaofed  in  reclaiming:  some  wastes  of  the 
Duke  of  Athole,  had  established  for  their  children. 
After  three  years  of  rapid  progress,  the  boy  of  eleven 
was  placed  in  the  Kirkraichael  school,  twelve  miles 
from  Moulin,  though  not  till  his  father  had  visited  the 
teacher  with  whom  Alexander  was  to  board,  and  had 
satisfied  himself  that  there  was  good  ground  for  his 
great  reputation  all  over  the  country-side.  In  time 
the  sluggish  Presbytery  of  Dunkeld  awoke  to  the  new 
educational  light,  and  a  deputation  of  their  number 
found  Alexander  Duff,  as  the  head  of  the  school,  put 
forward  to  read  the  Odes  of  Horace. 

Mr.  A.  Macdougall  was  master  of  Kirkmichael 
school.  In  his  family  and  under  his  teaching  Alex- 
ander Duff  laid  the  foundation  of  a  well-disciplined 
culture,  for  which,  s^  long  as  his  teacher  lived,  ho  did 
not  cease  to  express  to  him  the  warmest  affection. 
Among  his  fellows  were  Dr.  Duncan  Forbes,  who 
afterwards  became  Professor  of  Oriental  Languages 
in  King's  College,  London;  Dr.  Tweedie,  associated 
with  the  future  missionary  as  convener  of  the  Foreign 
Missions  Committee  of  the  Free  Church  of  Scotland ; 


^t.  II.  I'OST   IN  THE   SNOW.  1 5 

the  Rev.  Donald  Fergusson,  still  Free  Church  minister 
of  Loven ;  and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Campbell,  the  present 
parish  minister  of  Moulin.  Such  was  the  teacher's 
iil)ility,  and  such  his  well-deserved  popularity,  that 
the  thinly  peopled  parish  at  one  time  sent  eleven 
students  to  St.  Andrews.  "  I  have  not  forgotten  the 
days  I  passed  under  your  roof,"  wrote  Duff  when  he 
liad  become  famous,  to  his  old  master,  "  nor  the 
manifold  advantages  derived  from  your  tuition,  and,  I 
trust,  never  will.  And  when  the  time  comes  that  in 
fho  good  providence  of  God  I  shall  visit  Kirkmichael, 
I  know  that  to  mo  aj  least  it  will  be  matter  of 
licartfelt  <^iatification."  "  Wliat  would  I  have  been 
tliis  day,"  ho  wrote  again,  "had  not  an  overruling 
Providence  directed  mo  to  Kirkmichael  school?"  Of 
every  book  and  pamphlet  which  he  wrote  he  sent  a 
copy  to  his  first  benefactor. 

Before  he  left  Kirkmichael  to  pass  througli  the 
then  famous  grammar  school  of  Perth  to  St.  Andrews 
University,  he  was  to  carry  with  him  from  his  home 
another  experience  never  to  be  forgotten. 

The  winter  at  the  end  of  1819  was  severe,  and 
the  snow  lay  deep  in  the  Grampians.  The  Saturday 
liad  come  round  for  young  Duff's  weekly  visit  to 
his  parents.  Taking  the  shorter  track  for  ten  miles 
across  the  low  hill  by  Glen  Briarclian  and  Strathire, 
from  Kirkmichael  to  Moulin,  ho  and  a  companion 
waded  for  hoars  throuQ^h  the  snowv  heather.  The 
sun  set  as  they  got  oui.  of  the  glen,  no  stars  came  out, 
all  landmarks  were  obliterated,  and  they  knew  oidy 
that  they  had  to  pass  between  deep  morasses  and  a 
considerable  tarn.  To  return  was  as  impossible  as  it 
was  dangerous  to  advance,  for  already  they  felt  the 
ice  of  the  moss-covered  pools  and  then  of  the  lake 
cracking  under  their  feet  in  the  thick  darkness.  Still 
going  forward,  they  came   to  what  they  took  to  be 


1 6  LIFE   OP  DR.   DUFF.  1820, 

a  precipice  hidden  by  the  snow-driffc  down  -whicli 
tlioy  slid.  Then  they  heard  the  purling  of  the  burn 
which,  they  well  knew,  would  bring  them  down  the 
valley  of  Athole  if  they  had  only  light  to  follow  it. 
The  night  went  on,  and  the  words  with  which  they 
tried  to  cheer  themselves  and  each  other  grew  fainter, 
when  exhaustion  compelled  them  to  sit  down.  Then 
they  cried  to  God  for  deliverance.  With  their  heads 
resting  on  a  snow-wreath  they  were  vainly  trying  to 
keep  their  eyes  open,  when  a  bright  light  flashed  upon 
them  and  then  disappeared.  Roused  as  if  by  an 
electric  shock,  they  ran  forward  and  stumbled  against 
a  garden  wall.  The  light,  which  proved  to  be  the 
flare  of  a  torch  used  by  salmon  poachers  in  the  Tura- 
mel,  was  too  distant  to  guide  them  to  safety,  but  it  had 
been  the  means  of  leadino:  them  to  a  cottan^e  three 
miles  from  their  home.  The  occupants,  roused  from 
bed  in  the  early  morning,  warmed  and  fed  the  wan- 
derers. To  Alexander  Duff''s  parents  the  deliverance 
looked  almost  miraculous.  Often  in  after  years,  when 
he  was  in  peril  or  difficulty,  did  the  memory  of  that 
sudden  flash  call  forth  new  thankfulness  and  cheerful 
hope.  Trust  in  the  overruling  providence  of  a  gra- 
cious God  so  filled  his  heart  that  the  deliverance 
never  failed  to  stimulate  him  to  a  fresh  eff'ort  in  a 
righteous  cause  when  all  seemed  lost. 

The  boy  spent  his  fourteenth  year  at  Perth  Grammar 
School,  of  which  Mr.  Moncur,  the  ablest  of  the 
students  of  John  Hunter  of  St.  Andrews,  and  a  born 
teacher,  had  just  been  made  Rector.  The  flrst  act  of 
the  new  master  was,  in  presence  of  the  whole  school, 
to  summon  the  janitor  to  sink  in  the  Tay  the  many 
specimens  of  leathern  "  tawse  "  of  various  degrees  of 
torturing  power,  which  had  made  his  predecessor 
feared  by  generations  of  boys.  With  consummate 
acting,  ho  asked  why  the  generous  youths  entrusted 


^t.  14.     INFLUENCE    OP   THE    CLASSICS   AND   MILTON.  1 7 

to  liim  sliould  bo  treated  as  savages.  He  at  least  had 
confidenco  in  them  to  this  extent,  that  each  would  do 
liis  duty ;  and,  being  the  perfect  teacher  he  was,  his 
confidenco  was  justified.  The  scene  was  never  forgot- 
ten, and  it  went  far  to  develop  in  Duff  the  power  wliicli 
fascinated  and  awed  his  Bengalee  students  for  many 
a  year,  and  made  his  school  and  college  the  firt?t  in  all 
Asia.  Under  Moncur  his  Latin  and  Greek  scholarship 
had  their  foundation  broadened  as  well  as  deepened. 
In  the  favourite  optional  exercise,  now  too  much 
neglected,  of  committing  to  memory  the  master-pieces 
of  both,  he  generally  came  off'  first,  and  thus  was 
trained  a  faculty  to  which  much  of  his  oratorical 
success  afterwards  was  due.  He  left  Perth  at  fifteen, 
the  dux  of  the  school.  Yet  we  question  if  he  carried 
away  from  it  anything  better  than  Johnson's  "Ram- 
bler," which  the  Rector  lent  to  him  for  the  vacation 
before  the  University  term,  and  especially  Milton's 
"  Paradise  Lost."  Often  in  after  years  did  ho  refer  to 
the  latter  as  having,  unconsciously  at  the  time,  exercised 
a  great  influence  over  his  mental  habitudes.  He  carried 
the  book  constantly  in  his  pocket,  and  read  portions 
of  it  every  day.  Thus  the  "  Paradise  Lost  "  moulded 
his  feelings  and  shaped  his  thoughts  into  forms  pecu- 
liarly his  own.  The  Gaelic  Buchanan  and  the  English 
Milton,  the  Celtic  fire  and  the  Puritan  imagination, 
feeding  on  Scripture  story  and  classic  culture,  coloured 
by  such  dreams  and  experiences,  and  directed  by  such 
a  father  and  a  teacher — these  were  used  to  send  forth 
to  the  world  from  the  bosom  of  the  Grampians  a  tall 
eagle-eyed  and  impulsive  boy  of  fifteen.  Presented 
with  twenty  pounds  by  his  father,  from  that  day  he 
was  at  his  own  charges. 

It  was  a  fortunate  circumstance  that  he  went  to 
St.  Andrews.  Of  the  four  Scottish  universities  at 
that  time    the    most    venerable   was   still   the   most 

c 


1 8  LIFE    01'    1)11.    nUFP.  182 1. 

attractive,  from  tlic  renown  of  some  of  its  professoi's. 
Little,  of  course,  could  be  said  for  the  schools  of 
divinity  anywhere  till  Thomas  Chalmers  went  to  Edin- 
huri^h,  aUhough  Principal  IJaldano  was  not  without 
routine  ability  and  goodness,  as  head  of  St.  Mary's, 
the  theological  college  which  Canhnal  Beaton  had 
founded.  But  the  other  two,  known  as  the  United 
CVdleges  of  St.  Halvator  and  St.  Leonard,  enjoyed  the 
services  of  the  ripest  Latinist  at  that  time  in  the 
United  Kingdom,  Dr.  John  Hunter,  and  of  Dr. 
Jackson  whoso  lectures  on  natural  philosophy  were 
reckoned  the  most  scientific  of  the  day.  The  reputa- 
tion and  the  influence  of  even  these,  however,  were  con- 
fined to  their  generation  compared  with  that  intellec- 
tual and  spiritual  ferment  caused  by  the  new  professor 
of  moral  i)hilosop]iy,  which  is  still  working  in  the  lives 
of  men  and  the  institutions  of  his  country.  When  Dr. 
Chalmers  almost  suddenly  disappeared  from  the  pulpit 
and  platform,  the  wynds  and  the  hovels  of  Glasgow,  and 
began  the  winter  session  of  1823-2-^l<  at  St.  Andrews 
with  one  lecture,  Alexander  Duff,  having  carried  off  the 
highest  honours  in  Greek,  Latin,  logic,  and  natural 
philosophy,  was  one  of  the  crowd  Avho  sat  at  the  great 
professor's  feet.  His  Latin  had  procured  fc  ^  him  the 
most  valuable  of  those  rewards  which  Scotland,  with 
its  peculiar  mixture  of  Latin  and  French  theological 
and  law  terms,  calls  "bursaries,"  without  sufficiently 
distinguisliing  between  the  prizes  of  genuine  scholar- 
ship guined  by  hard  competition,  like  Duff's,  and  the 
doles  restricted  to  poor  students,  often  because  they 
bear  the  same  name  or  have  been  born  in  the  same 
district  as  the  thoughtless  or  vain  donor.  Especially 
had  he  carried  off  the  essay  prize  offered  for  the 
best  translation  into  Latin  of  Plato's  "Apology  of 
Socrates,"  and  the  Senaius  spontaneously  dubbed  him 
Master  of  Arts. 


Jf,t.  15.  ST.  ANDRRWS   AS   IT   WAS.  I9 

Tlio  impetuous  spirit  of  Du(T  received  impressions  of 
tlic  theological  deadness  of  St.  Andrews,  atidof  the  new 
life  brouglit  to  it  by  Clialmers,  which  found  this  ex- 
pression, when  recalled  in  the  distant  scenes  of  India : 
"  Poor  St.  Andrews  lay  far  away,  isolated  and  apart, 
in  a  region  so  cold  that  th,o  thaw  and  the  breeze,  so 
relaxing  and  vivifying  elsewhere,  scarcely  touched  its 
lianlened  soil.     The  great  stream  of  national  progress 
flowed  past,  leaving  it  undisturbed  in  its  sluggishness. 
Tiic  breezes  of  healthful  change  blew  over  it,  as  over 
the  unruffled  surface  of  a  land-locked  bay.     From  all 
external  influences,  even  of  an  ordinary  kind,  it  soemed 
entirely   shut    out.      No    steamer    ever    entered    its 
deserted  harbour,  with  its  influx   of  strangers  carry- 
ing  along   with    them   new    tastes,   new    habits   and 
new  thoughts.     No  mail-coach  or  oven  common  stage- 
coach ever  distuibed  the  silence   of    ts  cfrass-grown 
streets.      Its    magistracy    was   virtually    self-elected, 
enjoying  in  perpetuity  a  quiet  monopoly    of  power. 
The  Hector,  the  very  guardian  and  controller  of  its 
University,  must  be  himself  one  of  the  existing  prin- 
cipals or  professors  of  divinity ;  and  not,   as  in  tlio 
case  of  other  Scottish  universities,  a  man  beyond  tlio 
collegiate  pale — a  man  of  name,  of  independency  and 
power,  whoso  occasional  visitation  might  tend  to  shako 
the  dry  bones  of  dull,  deadening,  monotonous  routine. 
Dissent,  so  rife  and  flourishing  elsewhere,  could  barely 
show   itself  in   the  nerveless  impotence  of  creeping 
infancy.     And  even  the  rising  spirit  of  the  missionary 
enterprise  could  only  faintly  struggle,  and  that  too  in 
the  bosoms  of  but  a  few,  not. for  life  but  for  a  sickly 
weary  existence,  just  as  the  palm  or  other  rich  pro- 
duct of  tropical  climes  might  for  a  time  be  seen  pain- 
fully struggling  for  existence  on  a  bleak  Grampian 
heath. 
"  Such  was  the  condition  of  St.  Andrews, — a  con- 


20  LIFE    OF   DR.    DUFF.  1823. 

dition  in  which  the  gfiiinb  spirit  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  mantled  till  over  with  the  deadly  night-shade, 
was  felt  still  shooting  his  baleful  breath  far  into  the 
nineteenth, — a  condition  in  which  the  policy  and  the 
power  of  *  moderate '  ascendancy  were  comparatively 
unmodified  and  unchanged,  when,  in  the  spring  of 
1823,  it  was  suddenly  announced  that  Dr.  Chalmers 
was  unanimously  elected  by  the  Senatus  Academicus 
to  the  vacant  chair  of  Moral  Philosophy.  And  when 
it  is  remembered  that  at  that  time  not  one  member 
of  the  Senatus  belonged  to  the  evangelical  party  in 
the  Church,  that  all  were  moderate  and  some  of  them 
intensely  so,  and  that  Principal  Nicoll  was  even  the 
acknowledged  leader  of  the  moderate  party  in  the 
General  Assembly ;  it  may  well  bo  imagined  how  tlio 
unexpected  announcement  was  received  with  mingled 
feelings  of  surprise  and  delight — surprise  at  the  choice 
of  such  a  man.  by  such  an  elective  body,  delight  that 
the  choice  should  have  fallen  on  one  so  transcendently 
worthy.  Indeed,  *  delight '  is  far  too  feeble  and  in- 
adequate a  term  to  express  the  full  gust  of  pleasurable 
emotion  which  instantaneously  followed  the  announce- 
ment, and  speedily  diffused  itself  through  the  whole 
community.  It  was  rather  a  burst  of  high-wrought 
enthusiasm.  Of  some  it  might  truly  be  said  that  they 
believed  not  for  very  joy. 

"  Doubtless  the  sources  of  this  joy  were  of  an  ex- 
ceedingly varied  and  mingled  description.  Visions  of 
temporal  aggrandizement  already  floated  before  the 
minds  of  the  townspeople,  then  sadly  steeped  in  secu- 
larity  and  religious  indifference.  Without  commerce, 
without  manufacture  or  any  leading  branch  of  indus- 
trial occupation,  their  very  existence  might  bo  said  to 
depend  on  the  University.  And  in  the  presence  of 
such  a  *  celebrity '  as  Dr.  Chalmers,  they  were  sharp 
enough  to  behold  such  a  nucleus   of   attraction   for 


ylit.  17.  'i'UI^    COMING   OF    CUALMEI18    TO    ST.    ANDREWS.  21 

btialcnts  and  strangers  generally,  that  his  residence 
jiiiiongst  them  might  fairly  bo  regarded  as  equivalent 
to  an  increase  of  thousands  of  pounds  to  their  scanty 
niinual  income.  Again,  many  of  the  iidiabitants,  alike 
of  town  and  countiy,  had  numberless  traditionary 
local  anecdotes  and  recollections  of  him  as  a  boy,  a 
student,  a  lecturer  on  mathematics  and  chemistry,  and 
lastly,  as  the  eccentric  minister  of  the  neighbouring 
parish  of  Kilmany.  And  to  receive  him  back  again 
amongst  them,  in  the  full  blaze  of  an  unparalleled 
popularity,  they  felt  to  bo  like  the  shedding  of  some 
nndetinable  radiance  on  themselves.  Tiie  few,  the 
very  few,  scattered  and  almost  hidden  ones  of  piety 
and  prayer,  hailed  tho  event  with  feelings  somewhat 
akin  to  those  of  him  who  beheld  the  cloud  laden  with 
its  watery  treasure  rise  and  swell  from  the  west,  after 
a  long  and  dreary  season  of  parching  drought.  As 
for  the  students,  however  careless  or  unconcerned  as 
to  purely  spiritual  interests,  they  were,  without  any 
known  exception  and  with  all  the  honest  fervour  of 
youth,  enraptured  at  tho  thought  of  having  for  a 
professor  a  man  of  genius,  and  the  greatest  pulpit 
orator  of  his  age.  The  dull  dead  sea  of  former  apathy 
and  inertness  was  suddenly  stirred  up  from  the  depths 
by  the  rush  and  impulse  of  new  and  unwonted  excite- 
ment. For  many  dajs  they  could  think  of  nothing 
else,  and  speak  of  nothing.  The  third  volume  of 
'  Peter's  Letters  to  his  Kinsfolk,'  with  its  portrait  and 
graphic  delineation  of  Dr.  Chalmers,  obtained  from 
the  college  library,  was  well-nigh  torn  and  shattered 
from  tho  avidity  for  its  perusal.  Already  did  every 
one  picture  to  himself  the  form  of  the  man  with  his 
pale  countenance  and  drooping  eyelids ;  his  mathe- 
matical breadth  of  forehead  with  its  '  arch  of  imaofina- 
tiouj'  surmounted  by  a  grand  apex  of  high  and  solemn 
veueiation  and  love.    Already,  with  anticipated  breath- 


23  LIl'E    OF   Dll.    DL'l'F.  182J. 

Icssncss,  (lid  ojicli  otio  scoin,  in  fancy,  as  if  ho  felt  lii3 
Tierves  creeping  jukI  vibrating,  and  his  l)l()od  i'lvcz- 
ing  and  boiling,  when  the  elocpienco  of  tho  niiglity 
enchant(»r,  bursting  through  all  conventional  trannnela, 
shono  forth  in  all  tho  splendour  of  its  overpowering 
glories. 

"  At  length  the  time  of  his  installation  canio  round. 
In  November,  1823,  ho  delivered  his  inaugund  lecture 
in  the  lower  hall  of  the  public  lil)rary,  still  called  tho 
'  Parliament  Hall,*  as  there,  in  IGI'5,  the  Covenanting 
1  Parliament  assembled  which  tried  and  condemned 
Sir  Robert  Spottiswood  and  other  royalists  for  their 
share  in  the  battle  of  rhili[)haugh."  Dr.  ITanna  has 
told  tho  rest  in  tho  memoirs  of  his  great  father-in- 
law. 

Such  wcro  tho  professors.  And  what  tho  students  ? 
There  had  followed  Duff  to  St.  Andrews  an  old  school- 
fellow from  Perth,  John  Urcpdiart,  with  whom  ho 
shared  the  same  lodgings,  and,  morning  and  evening, 
engaged  in  the  same  worship.  Unpdiart  was  a  Con- 
gj'egationalist,  as  were  also  John  Adam  and  W.  Lind- 
say Alexander,  who  is  still  spared  to  the  ('hurch,  and 
has  written  this  bright  sketch  of  Duff  in  their  student 
days:  "When  I  first  became  ac(puunted  with  him 
he  was  in  all  the  vigour  and  freshness  of  early  youth, 
stalwart  in  frame,  buoyant  of  spirit,  full  of  energy 
and  enthusiasm,  impulsive  but  not  rash,  a  diligent  and 
earnest  student,  and  already  crowned  with  academic 
distinctions  earned  by  success  in  different  depart- 
ments of  learned  and  scientific  study,  llis  reputation 
stood  high  as  a  classical  scholar,  and  he  had  gained 
several  prizes  for  essays  in  literature  and  philosophy. 
Subsequently  to  the  time  of  which  I  am  speaking,  he 
gained  equal  distinction  as  a  Hebrew  scholar,  and  his 
essays  in  theology  commanded  the  strongest  approba- 
tion from  his  professors.     Already  also  as  a  speaker, 


^],:t    ,7.  AS   A   STUDKNT    IN    ST.    ANDIJKWS.  23 

li(>  li:i(l  in  (lel)ii(inj^  fiociotios,  and  snbsoqucntly  by  liis 
discourses  in  tlio  IMicoloirical  I  lull,  displayed  that 
intclk'ctiial  [)o\vcr  and  that  rare  gift  of  elo(|UCMico 
wliicli  enabled  him  in  after-years  so  niii^ditily  to  sway 
the  emotions,  giiido  the  opinions,  and  iiitliieiico  tho 
decisions  of  others,  in  deliberative  councils  no  less 
than  in  ])opular  assemblies." 

Que  of  his  juiuors,  the  son  of  Professor  Ferric,  and 
now  tlie  Rev.  AV^illiam  Ferric,  in  the  State  of  New 
York,  gives  ns  this  other  and  very  human  gliuipsc  of 
ilic  iuipeluous  student: — "lie  was  passing  the  win- 
tlows  of  my  father's  house  in  St.  Andrews  with  others 
innu(r  to  some  great  students'  meeting,  and  1  remember 
Nairnc,  who  was  theti  my  tutor,  called  out  as  they 
passed,  'There  is  Duff.'  I  looked,  and  ho  had  on  a 
cloak,  and  was  going  Avith  a  good  thick  stick  in  liis 
hand,  as  though  ho  expected  that  there  might  bo  a 
row."  The  Rev.  J.  ^V.  Taylor,  of  Flisk,  whose  first 
year  at  college  was  Duff's  last,  writes  :  "  Though  out- 
rageously thoughtless  I  was  much  impressed  l)y  Duff. 
There  was  a  weight  and  a  downi'ight  earnestness 
about  him  which  everybody  felt.  lie  was  the  l)oast 
of  the  college,  ''nd  was  greatly  regarded  by  the  towns- 
folk of  St.  Andrews.  His  ap[)earancc  as  ho  passed 
with  Imri'icd  step  is  indelibly  photographed  on  my 
niiiid,  and  is  thus  put  in  my  *  Historical  Antiquities ' 
of  the  city.  *  That  tall  figure,  crossing  tho  street  and 
looking  thoughtfully  to  the  ground,  stooped  somewhat 
ill  tho  shoulders  and  his  hand  awkwardly  grasping 
the  lappet  of  his  coat,  is  Alexander  Duff,  tho  pride  of 
tlio  college,  whoso  mind  has  received  the  impress  of 
Chalmers's  big  thoughts  and  tho  form  of  his  phrase- 
ology. Under  Chalmers,  ho  was,  in  St.  Andrews,  tlic 
institutor  of  Sabbath  schools  and  the  originator  of 
the  Students'  Missionary  Societ3^'  "  Another  survivirig 
fellow-student,  Dr.  A.  M'Laren,  the  minister  of  Kem- 


34  LIFE    OF   DR.    DUFF.  1824. 

back,  near  Cupar,  describes  him  thus: — "  As  a  friend  he 
was  alwa^'^s  singularly  obliging,  warm-hearted  and  con- 
stant ;  as  a  companion  he  was  uniformly  agreeable  and 
cheerful,  and  not  unfrequently  impressive  in  his  appeals 
to  the  better  susceptibilities  of  our  nature;  though 
generally  in  high  spirits  and  mirthful,  he  never  allowed 
his  mirth  to  degenerate  into  boisterous  vulgarity." 
Yv  hat  the  lad  was  at  St.  Andrews,  the  man  proved  to 
bo  all  through  his  life.  He  was  high-minded,  generous 
and  chivalrous  with  the  bearing  of  the  old  school,  and 
that  not  less  after  his  hours  of  controversy  than  in  his 
happiest  times. 

The  first  session  was  not  over  when  the  great 
Christian  economist,  the  expounder  of  Malthus  and 
Ricardo,  who  had  transformed  the  worst  wynds  of 
Glasgfow,  bef?an  the  humblest  mission  work  in  the  more 
ancient  city,  and  threw  himself  into  the  then  despised 
cause  of  foreign  missions.  Duff's  young  spiritual  life, 
which  had  been  slumbering  into  formalism,  he  tells  us, 
was  quickened  with  that  burning  enthusiasm  which 
glowed  the  brighter  to  his  dying  day.  His  friends, 
Urquhart  and  Adam,  took  steps  to  offer  themselves  to 
the  London  Missionary  Society  for  China  and  Calcutta ; 
and  llobert  Nesbit  went  to  his  friend  John  Wilson,  of 
Lauder,  begging  him  to  break  the  news  to  his  motlier 
that  he  was  to  be  sent  by  the  Scottish  Missionary 
Society  to  Bombay.  It  is  not  surprising  that  these, 
and  such  companions  as  the  late  Henry  Craik,  of 
Bristol,  Mr.  Midler's  colleague;  William  Tait,  son  of 
the  godly  Edinburgh  minister  who  was  deposed  in  the 
Row  heresy  case ;  and  Mv.  Scott  Moncrieff,  late  of 
Penicuik,  met  with  Duff  in  the  session  of  1824-5,  and 
founded  the  Students'  Missionary  Society.  Duff  was 
its  librarian,  Nesbit  its  secretary,  and  R.  Trail  its 
president,  as  having  originated  an  earlier  society  of 
divinity  students  only.      Their  object  was    to   study 


^t..i8.        THE   STUDENTS    MISSIONARY  SOCIETr.  25 

foreign  missions,  so  as  to  satisfy  themselves  of  the 
necessities  of  the  world  outside  of  Christendom.  IS^ot 
a  room  for  their  meetings  would  the  authorities  of 
either  college,  or  the  magistrates  who  had  charge  of 
the  city  school,  allow  them,  until,  some  time  after,  the 
principal  and  professors  were  enlightened  so  far  as  to 
subscribe  an  occasional  guinea.  And  that  in  spite 
of  all  the  influence  of  Chalmers,  who  fed  the  spirit  of 
the  students  and  interested  the  townsfolk  in  the  cause 
by  lecturing  on  some  portion  of  the  field  of  heathenism 
once  a  month  in  the  town-hall.  This  society,  note- 
worthy in  the  history  of  Scottish  Missions  as  the 
fruitful  parent  of  the  most  apostolic  missionaries  of 
the  country,  met  first  in  an  adventure  school  in  a 
dingy  lane  of  St.  Andrews. 

The  Memoir  of  Urquhart,  who  passed  away  all  too 
early  from  the  work  for  which  he  was  preparing,  reveals 
at  once  the  depth  of  Duff's  friendship,  in  the  letters 
and  in  the  preface  to  the  third  edition  of  18G9,  and 
the  very  practical  forms  of  mission  study  and  prayer 
followed  by  the  members.  When  Urquhart,  in  his 
concluding  address,  solemnly  announced  for  the  first 
time  his  personal  dedication  to  missionary  work,  and 
charged  every  one  of  his  fellows  to  take  this  matter 
into  most  serious  consideration,  his  friend  Duff  re- 
ceived a  deep  and  solemn  impression.  But  books, 
essays,  and  even  the  lectures  of  Chalmers,  were  not 
all.  In  those  days  the  giants  of  the  early  societies 
occasionally  came  home  with  news  of  victory  in  the 
high  places  of  the  field,  with  plans  of  further  cam- 
paigns, with  appeals  for  recruits.  When  Urquhart 
startled  his  companions  by  that  announcement  into 
following  his  exam.ple,  ne  had  just  returned  from  a  visit 
to  the  great  missionary,  Dr.  Morrison,  then  in  London, 
from  whom  he  had  been  taking  lessons  in  Chinese. 

Dr.  Chalmers  kept  open  house  for  all  such  in  St. 


26  LlFli   01'   mi.   DUFF.  1828. 

Andrews,  to  which  his  sympathy  with  them  as  well 
as  his  fame  attracted  them.  Thus  the  students  saw 
Dr.  Marshman,  who  was  full  of  the  enterprise  of  1818, 
when  ho  and  Carey  had  opened,  in  Serampore,  the  first 
English  and  Sanscrit  college  for  native  missionaries 
and  educated  Hindoos.  Dr.  Morrison  in  due  time 
came  north,  to  plead  for  IIong-Kong  and  Canton, 
to  which  his  labours  were  then  confined;  to  tell  of 
his  triumphs  iu  Biblo  translating  and  dictionary 
making,  and  to  give  some  account  of  the  ten  thousand 
Chinese  books  which  he  had  brought  home.  And 
from  Calcutta  there  might  be  seen,  at  the  lively  break- 
fast table  of  the  renowned  professor  of  moral  philo- 
sophy, the  spare  form  of  that  Sanscrit  and  Bengalee 
pundit.  Dr.  Yates,  alternating  between  attacks  on 
Church  establishments  and  expositions  of  Brahmanical 
subtleties,  or  listening  to  the  professor's  emphatically 
expressed  opinion  that  religious  societies  should  bo 
managed  by  laymen,  while  ministers  confine  themselves 
to  the  more  spiritual  duties  of  their  ofifice.*  John 
Urquhart  was  right  when  he  Avrote  that  the  colleges 
of  St.  Andrews,  under  all  these  influences,  had  become 
like  those  of  Oxford  in  the  days  of  Ilervey  and  Wesley. 
Reckoning  up  the  fruits  of  the  influence  of  Chalmers 
for  five  years  on  the  three  hundred  students  who 
passed  through  his  classes,  his  accomplished  biographer 
exclaims  : — "  More  than  one  missionary  for  each  col- 
lege session — two  out  of  every  hundred  students — 
what  other  University  record  can  present  a  parallel ! " 
The  six  were  Nesbit,  Adam,  Duff  and  Urquhart,  and 
Mackay  and  Ewart  who  followed  them.  Dr.  Hanna, 
remarks  of  Duff,  that  the  life  and  labours  of  this  prince 
of  missionaries  proved  how  truly  and  how  intensely  he 


•  Dr.  Hanna's  Memoirs  of  Thomas  Chalmers,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  vol. 
iii.,  p.  15'i,  note. 


^t.  22.  LETTER   TO   DR.    CHALMERS.  27 

was  impelled  to  tread  in  the  footsteps  and  to  imitate 
the  noble  pattern  of  his  great  teacher. 

It  was  on  the  19th  October,  1828,  that  Dr.  Chalmers 
made  this  entry  in  his  journal : — "  Enjoyed  my  last 
Sunday  at  the  beautiful  garden  of  St.  Leonard's :  a 
sad  sinking  of  heart."  Duff  returned  to  his  last  ses- 
sion at  St.  Andrews  to  find  the  light  of  the  University 
leaving  for  the  wider  and  more  purely  proft*ssional 
sphere  of  Professor  of  Divinity  in  Edinburgh.  But 
tlio  disappointed  student  found  some  recompense  in 
being  asked  by  Chalmers  to  write  freely  to  him.  Tho 
first  fruit  of  a  correspondence  and  a  personal  friend- 
ship which  ceased,  twenty  years  after,  only  v/iMi  tho 
death  of  the  greatest  Scotsman  since  Knox,  was  the 
following.  Dr.  Chalmers  seems  to  have  carefully  pre- 
served the  original,  having  that  sympathy  with  students 
which  more  than  doubles  the  preacher's  and  the  pro- 
fessor's power : — 

"  St.  Andrews,  20th  Jan.,  1829. 

"Rev.  and  Dear  Sir, — When  leaving  St.  Andrews, 
you  were  so  good  as  to  request  me  to  write  to  you 
during  the  session,  and  I  promised  to  do  so.  I  assure 
you  that  neither  the  request  nor  the  promise  was  for 
one  moment  forgotten.  I  reckoned  tho  request  an 
honour,  and  you  know  it  is  not  human  nature  to 
neglect  what  is  viewed  in  this  light.     .     .     . 

"  The  sum  total  of  students  attending  the  Old  Col- 
lege is  191 ;  St.  Mary's,  nearly  40.  The  session  has 
as  yet  passed  by  very  quietly.  T>here  are  no  gcnfleman 
outlaws  or  iwivileged  desperadoes  to  gain  an  infamous 
notoriety  by  disturbing  the  general  peace,  and  setting 
laws  and  discipline  at  open  defiance.  Billiard?  and 
nocturnal  riots  and  other  irregularities  are  therefore 
unheard  of;  and  if  there  be  an  indulirerco  in  any  ex- 
cesses, it  is  still  shroud*  "1   uiidcr  the  veil  of  scores  v. 


28  LIFE   OF   DR.   DUFF.  1829. 

The  vigorous  measures  taken  by  the  professors  on  a 
former  session  operate  as  a  very  salutary  if  not  an 
effectual  check  ;  and  tlie  rigid  upholding  of  these  mea- 
sures will  no  doubt  render  the  check  permanent. 

*'  Dr.  Cook's  arrival  in  St.  Andrews  caused  littlo 
inquiry,  and  created  littlo  or  no  excitement.  His  in- 
troductory lecture  was  delivered  in  the  Latin  class- 
room to  an  audience  almost  solely  composed  of  students, 
and  not  very  numerous.  Its  brilliance  may  be  esti- 
mated from  the  fact  that  most  of  the  students  appeared 
very  restless  and  fidgety;  Mr.  Lothian  sat  yawning 
in  one  of  the  back  seats.  Dr.  Cook  has  proclaimed 
himself  the  champion  of  the  ancient  system.  He 
seemed  to  exult  in  having  the  high  honour  of  restoring 
the  poor  houseless  fugitive  to  its  former  domains,  and 
investing  it  with  its  former  dignity.  His  was  a  most 
perfect  science :  it  was  independent  of  revelation ;  it 
could  exalt  man  to  a  state  of  dignity  allied  to  the 
Fountain  of  being,  and  could  achieve  wonders  in 
refining  the  moral  constitution  of  the  lord  of  nature. 
Moral  philosophy  could  not  be  understood  without  a 
previous  view  of  the  mental  faculties.  This  was  proved 
and  illustrated  by  a  lengthened  analogy,  of  which  this 
is  the  substance  :  It  is  as  impossible  to  investigate  the 
principles  of  morals  without  a  previous  knowledge  of 
the  faculties  of  the  mind — which  is  the  instrument  em- 
ployed— as  it  is  for  the  astronomer  to  have  a  know- 
ledge of  his  science  without  a  previous  acquaintance 
with  the  facts  of  astronomy.  The  depth  of  this  rea- 
soning no  one  could  fathom,  and  it  was  unanimously 
enrolled  among  the  list  of  paralogisms.  He  then  gave 
a  sketch  of  his  course,  of  which  I  have  endeavoured  to 
send  you  a  faithful  outline.  From  it  you  will  at  once 
perceive  how  rigidly  he  intends  to  follow  the  traces  of 
the  olden  time,  and  how  St.  Andrews  is  likely  to  retain 
its  character  of  the  *  Old  Maiden '  strictly  inviolate. 


M.  23.   ST.    ANDREWS   UNIVERSITY    AFTER   CHALMERS.  29 

IIg  concluded  by  a  lon^  panegyric  on  his  father,  wlio 
was  one  of  the  most  distinguished  of  moral  pliiloso- 
pliers  ;  and  another  upon  Dr.  Crawford,  adding,  '  Nei- 
tlicr  can  I  bo  supposed  to  bo  altogether  unaffected  by 
the  brilliant  talents  and  the  splendid  eloquence  of  my 
immediate  predecessor/  Almost  in  the  next  breath 
he  proceeded, '  Entering  the  chair  which  I  now  occupy, 
after  three  such  distinguished  men,  it  may  bo  thougiit 
that  I  labour  under  many  disadvantages,'  etc.,  and 
concluded  by  stating  that  he  had  thought  long  and 
much  upon  the  subject,  and  therefore  felt  himself  by 
no  means  unprepared  to  deliver  a  course  of  lectures 
upon  moral  philosophy.  Upon  this  a  certain  gentle- 
man facetiously  remarked  t  '  No  wonder,  for  he  has 
been  preaching  upon  morals  all  his  lifetime.*  My  own 
feelings,  and  the  feelings  of  all  those  whose  memories 
fondly  dwelt  upon  better  days  and  enabled  them  to 
draw  a  sorrowful  contrast,  would  heartily  incline  mo 
to  inscribe  above  the  door  of  entrance,  in  legible 
characters,  '  Ichabod,  the  glory  is  gone.'  The  number 
of  students  attending  this  class  has  actually  dwindled 
to  28 — not  half  the  number  for  the  last  five  years. 
This  some  of  the  professors  account  for  by  saying 
that  last  session  some  of  the  second-year  students 
attended  moral  philosophy  instead  of  logic,  and  this 
season  they  attend  logic  instead  of  moral  philosophy. 
But  the  truth  is,  there  are  only  four  or  five  students  of 
whom  this  can  be  said,  leaving  still  the  deficiency  un- 
accounted for  on  any  such  principle.  He  was  prepared 
to  lecture  on  political  economy,  and  every  exertion 
was  made  to  muster  a  class ;  but  the  thing  would 
not  succeed.  Two  students  were  at  last  induced  to 
enrol;  but  such  an  attendance  was  too  meagre  to 
escape  the  imputation  of  being  a  farce,  and  accordingly 
the  scheme  was  abandoned  as  hopeless. 
"  The  other  classes  are  conducted  in  the  usual  way, 


30  LIFE   OF   Dll.    DUFF.  1S29. 

except  that  Mr.  Duncan  and  Dr.  Jackson  have  estab- 
hshcd  a  regular  system  of  weekly  competitions,  which 
promise  to  do  much  good  in  stimulating  and  rewarding 
the  really  deserving. 

"  About  ten  days  ago  old  Dr.  Hunter  was  found  in 
his  study  asleep  and  almost  stilT  with  cold,  his  fire 
having  gone  out.  For  some  days  he  was  confined  to 
bed,  very  unwell,  but  is  now  rapidly  recovering. 

*'  The  building  of  a  new  college  is  still  the  subject  of 
conversation.  Reports  have  flourished  without  num- 
b^  r,  and  repeatedly  died ;  but  the  happy  consummation 
of  their  dying  into  a  reality  seems  yet  to  be  somewhat 
distant.  True,  the  professors  talk  confidently  of 
£23,000  being  granted  through  the  intercession  of 
Lord  Melville,  of  the  money  being  already  in  the  Ex- 
chequer in  Edinburgh,  of  the  king's  architect  being 
expected  everyday;  the  foundation  stone  is  to  be  laid 
in  March,  and  your  class-rooms  are  to  be  finished 
during  the  ensuing  summer,  etc.,  etc.  These  things 
may  be  true,  but  past  disappointments  suggest  the 
propriety  of  not  being  very  sanguine  till  actual  opera- 
tions are  commenced. 

"  The  Students'  Missionary  Society  is  succeeding  as 
well  as  ever,  its  numbers  in  no  degree  diminished. 
Even  those  who  were  at  first  disposed  to  view  it  with 
a  jealous  eye  and  shrink  from  any  contact  with  it,  as 
being  an  institution  quite  unacademical,  begin  to  regard 
it  more  auspiciously  and  countenance  it  with  their 
support.  Our  meetings  are  well  attended,  our  books 
much  read ;  so  that  I  trust  the  spirit  which  was  sud- 
denly kindled  five  years  ago  may  long  survive  in  this 
quarter  at  least,  and  demonstrate  that  it  was  not  an 
ephemeral  effervescence,  founded  on  no  principle  and 
supported  by  no  truth.  I  would  rejoice  to  be  en- 
abled to  assert  the  same  of  the  Town  Missionary 
Society.     All  were  prepared  for  a  great  change,  so  that 


JEt.  23.  CITY    MISSION    WORK.  3  I 

its  decrease  was  not  unexpected.  Its  monthly  meet- 
ings are  truly  the  wreck  of  what  they  were.  The 
animating  spirit  is  gone,  and  gone  with  it  have  most 
of  the  attendants.  I  fear  they  will  find  the  greatest 
(lilficiilty  in  keeping  up  these  interesting  meetings,  and 
tliat  the  Society  will  relapse  into  its  original  state  of 
inefficiency.  ]\lr.  Bain  reads  the  greatest  part  of  the 
evening,  and  Mr.  Lothian  takes  also  a  share.  But 
there  is  the  absence  of  those  connecting  remarks,  and 
those  appeals  and  addresses  which,  to  most  of  the 
auditors,  constituted  the  charm  of  the  evening's  busi- 
ness in  past  years.  Mr.  Bain  is  well-meaning  and 
very  anxious  for  its  prosperity,  but  he  wants  life, 
energy  and  activity.  If  the  new  burgher-minister 
now  to  be  elected,  Mr.  Aiken,  be  a  popular  man,  ho 
may  lend  effective  aid  and  in  some  measure  cause  a 
revival. 

"  Sabbath  schools  have  now  overtaken  almost  tho 
whole  population.  I  have  personally  visited  all  tho 
lower  classes  in  the  town,  and  did  not  find  twenty 
children  who  were  not  attending  some  school  or  other. 
A  very  great,  if  not  the  greatest  proportion  appears 
to  be  taught  by  Dissenters — a  circumstance  which  of 
course  grieves  Dr.  Haldano  very  much.  lie  is  so 
much  annoyed  by  it,  that  he  spends  no  inconsiderable 
portion  of  his  time  in  visiting  the  parents  for  the  ex- 
press purpose  of  requesting  them  to  beware  of  the 
arts  and  beguiling  insinuations  of  the  Dissenters, 
and  to  remove  their  children  from  their  schools  ere 
they  be  tinctured  with  their  pestiferous  principles. 
At  all  events  every  Christian  must  rejoice  that  '  by 
all  means '  the  doctrine  of  the  Cross  is  now  regularly 
and  systematically  taught  to  nearly  all  the  children  of 
St.  Andrews. 

"Dr.  Haldane  has  contrived  to  muster  a  class  of 
mechanics,  or  rather  apprentice-lads,  to  whom  I  ex- 


32  LIFE   OF   DU.    DCFF.  1829. 

plain  an  appointed  passage  of  Scripture  every  Sunday 
morning  between  ten  antl  eleven  o'clock.  I  have  tlio 
conducting  of  a  girls'  school  between  four  and  six;  and 
later  in  the  evening  I  spend  an  hour  and  a  half  or  two 
hours  with  Messrs.  Smyth,  Fortune,  Watson  and  an- 
other fellow-boarder,  Ilobb,  from  Stirling.  I  prescribe 
a  chapter  to  be  read  and  studied  for  the  following 
Sabbath,  examine  upon  it,  make  remarks  and  explana- 
tions. Messrs.  Watson  and  Fortune,  in  whose  welfare 
you  expressed  yourself  as  interested,  are  conducting 
themselves  with  great  propriety,  and  I  feel  very  much 
delighted  with  the  intelligent  a;iswers  which  they 
give  to  most  of  the  questions  put  to  them  on  the 
Sabbath  evening.  Mr.  Craik  expresses  himself  satis- 
fied with  the  manner  in  which  they  prepare  their 
regular  class-lessons. 

"  I  have  been  proposed  for  trials  before  the  Presby- 
tery of  St.  Andrews,  and  my  first  examination  takes 
place  on  the  lltli  of  February.  I  almost  begin  to  fear 
when  I  think  of  the  awful  responsibility  of  the  Chris- 
tian ministry,  and  tliis  fear  sometimes  makes  me  shrink 
from  the  office,  as  if  it  were  to  be  tarnished  by  my  pre- 
sence. Again  I  reflect,  that  if  my  motives  are  well 
founded  the  Lord  will  sustain  me ;  and  if  not,  it  were 
far  better  that  I  desisted  in  time." 

In  the  spring  of  1829,  and  in  this  spirit,  Alexander 
Dulf,  M.A.,  was  licensed  by  the  Presbytery  of  St. 
Andrews  "  to  preach  the  gospel  of  Christ  and  to  exer- 
cise his  gifts  as  a  probationer  of  the  holy  ministry." 
The  man  was  ready ;  the  work  had  been  long  waiting 
for  him. 


CHAPTER  11. 

1829. 

TUE  FIRST  MISSIONARY  OF  THE  CEUUCII  OF 

SCOTLAND. 

Early  Missionary  Confession  of  the  Kirk. — The  Apathy  of  Two  Cen- 
turies.— Preparations  by  the  Scottish  Layman,  Charles  Grant. — 
Tho  Foundation  of  the  Missioni>ry  Societies  after  the  French 
Revolution. — The  First  Preshjtonan  Chaplain  and  Enj^lish 
Bishop  of  Calcutta. — Dr.  Inj^lis,  Founder  of  tho  Mission. — Lord 
Binning's  Help. — General  Assembly's  Letter  to  tho  People  of 
Scotland. — Alexander  Duff's  Ansv/er. — Announcement  to  hir 
Father  and  Mother. — Accepted  by  the  Foreign  Mission  Com- 
mittee on  his  own  Conditions. — Ilis  First  Missionary  Sermons. — 
Bagster's  Bible  Presented  to  Him. — Pathetic  Counsels  and  Fare- 
wells.— David  Ewart. — Patrick  Lawson's  Advice. — Marriage  and 
Ordination. — Mr.  and  Mrs.  Duff  leave  Leith  for  London. — Dr. 
Inglis  to  Dr.  Bryco. — Letter  to  Dr.  Chalmers. 

The  work  had  been  waiting  for  two  hundred  and 
seventy  years.  Alone  of  all  the  Reformed  Churches 
the  Kirk  of  Scotland  had  placed  in  the  very  front  of 
its  Confession  the  fact  that  it  was  a  missionary  church. 
The  foresight  of  John  Knox,  the  statesmanship  of  the 
Scotsmen  who  gave  civil  as  well  as  religious  freedom 
to  the  kingdom,  have  been  extolled  by  secular  historians 
so  opposite  as  Mr.  Froude  and  Mr.  Hill  Burton.  But 
that  foresight  saw  farther  than  even  they  acknowledge, 
when  the  Scottish  Parliament  of  1560  passed  an  Act 
embodying  the  first  Confession,  which  has  this  for  its 
motto,  "  And  this  glaid  tydingis  of  the  kyngdome  sail 
be  precheit  through  the  haill  warld  for  a  witncs  unto 
all  natiouns,  and  then  sail  the  end  cum."  That  con- 
fession was  the  four  days'  work  of  John  Winram,  John 

D 


34  LIFE   OF   DR.   DUFF.  1S29. 

Spotswood,  John  Willock,  John  Doiighis,  Jolm  Row 
and  John  Knox. 

First  self-presci'vation,  then  the  attempt  to  throw 
their  own  ecclesiastical  organization  uniformly  over 
England  also  by  political  means,  and  finally  the  re- 
action and  tho  indifference  which  mere  policy  brings 
about,  succeeded  in  reducing  the  Kirk  of  tho  eighteenth 
century  to  lifelossncss.  What  had,  for  all  Christendom, 
been  a  series  of  crusades  against  the  Turks;  and  for 
tho  Spanish  and  Portuguese  discoverers  in  the  Indies, 
West  and  East,  a  series  of  raids  by  the  Latin  Church 
on  tho  native  inhabitants,  became  in  tho  Reformed 
Churches  at  homo  a  defence  of  the  orthodox  faith 
against  popery.  But  tho  General  Assembly  of  1G17 
had  expressed  a  ^vish  for  "  a  more  firm  consocia- 
tion for  propagating  it  to  those  who  aro  without, 
especially  the  Jews.  For  the  unanimity  of  all  the 
Churches,  as  in  evil  'tis  of  all  things  most  hurtful,  so, 
on  the  contrary  side,  in  good  it  is  most  pleasant, 
most  profitable,  and  most  effectual."  Again  do  w^o 
catch  a  glimpse  of  tho  missionary  spirit  when,  in 
sending  forth  ministers  with  tho  unfortunate  Darien 
expedition,  the  Assembly  of  1G99  enjoined  them 
particularly  to  labour  among  the  natives ;  while  its 
successor  added,  "  The  Lord,  we  hope,  will  yet  honour 
.you  and  this  Churcli  from  which  you  are  sent  to  carry 
His  name  among  the  heathen."  In  1743  tho  Kirk 
indirectly  supported  Brainerd,  and  in  1774  tried  to 
raise  up  native  teachers  in  Africa.  Yet  so  far  did  it 
decline  from  the  ideal  of  Knox,  that  when  the  French 
Revolution  and  the  progress  of  commercial  discovery 
had  roused  England,  America  and  Germany,  as  little 
Denmark  had  long  before  been  stimulated,  the  General 
Assembly  selected  as  its  Moderator  the  minister  who 
in  1796  carried  this  opinion  by  a  majority — "  To  spread 
abroad  the  knowledge  of  tho  gospel  among  barbarous 


^t.  23.         THE    EAST   INDIA    COMrANY's   CUAUTKUS.  35 

and  lioatlicu  nutions  sclmhs  to  bo  liiglily  preposterous, 
ill  so  far  as  it  anticipates,  nay,  it  cveu  reverses  tlio 
order  of  nature." 

What  the  Kirk  of  Scothuid  refused  to  do  till  1820, 
one  of  the  greatest  of  its  sons  was  for  half  a  century 
carefully   preparing.       Charles    Grant,   an  Inverness- 
sliiro  boy,  was  a  civil  servant  of  the  East  India  Com- 
pany during  the  famine  which  swept  off  a  third  of 
the  population  of  a  largo  portion  of  Bengal  in  1770. 
From  thai  time,  as  an  evangelical  Christian  first  and  a 
Presbyterian,  Baptist  and  Episcopalian  afterwards,  as 
his  position  led  him,  Charles  Grant  in   India,  in  tlio 
Court   of  Directors,  in   the    House   of  Commons,  in 
society  and  in  the  press,  never  ceased  till  he  induced 
Parliament  to  send  out  chaplains  and  schoolmasters, 
and   tho   Churches   to    supply   missionaries.      Before 
Carey  had  landed  at  Calcutta  and  become  his  friend, 
Charles    Grant    had   implored   Simeon   to   send    out 
eight  missionaries,  offering  to  receive  all   and    him- 
self to  bear  permanently  the  cost  of  two.     That  was 
before  Simeon's  pregnant  visit  to  Moulin.     To  Charles 
Grant  and  the  friends  whom  he  stirred  up,  like  AVilbcr- 
force  and  the  elder  Macaulay,  wo  owe  first  the  Charter 
Act  of    1793  which  conceived,  that  of   1813   wliicli 
brought  to  the  birth,  and  that  of  1833  which  completed, 
what  we  may  fairly  describe  as  the  christianization 
of  the  East  India  Company,  opening  its  settlements  in 
India  and  China  to  toleration  in  the  widest  sense  alike 
of  truth  and  of  trade. 

The  nearly  successful  attempt  of  Wilberforce  to  get 
"  the  pious  clauses  "  of  Charles  Grant  into  the  charter 
of  1793,  though  foiled  by  the  time-serving  Dundas, 
then  dictator  of  Scotland,  led  Christian  men  through- 
out England  and  Scotland  to  do  what  the  Churches  in 
their  corporate  character  were  still  unwilling  to  organ- 
ize.    Tlie  Baptists  had  shown  tho  way  under  Carey,  in 


36  LIFE    OF   DIl.    DUFF.  1829. 

1792.  rrcsbytcrians,  Indcpontlonts  and  some  Anglican 
Evangelicals  united  to  found  the  London  JMissionary 
Society  in  1795.  The  year  after  saw  tlio  more  local 
Scottish  and  Glasgow  ^lissionary  Societies.  And  to 
tlic  partly  colonial,  partly  foreign  agency  of  the  Propa- 
gation Society,  the  Evangelicals  of  tho  Church  of 
England  added  the  Church  Missionary  Society,  which, 
in  1804,  sent  forth  to  West  Africa  its  first  represent- 
atives, who  were  German.  By  its  establishment  of 
one  bishop,  three  archdeacons,  several  Episcopalian 
and  three  Presbyterian  chaplains  in  India,  tho  charter 
of  1813  compelled  the  directors  of  the  East  I:idia 
Company  "  to  show  our  desire  to  encourage,  by  every 
prudent  means  in  our  power,  tho  exteuoion  of  the 
principle  of  the  Christian  religion  in  India."  That 
language  is  sufficiently  cautious,  and  tho  concession 
marks  no  advance  on  the  orders  of  William  III.,  in 
the  charter  of  1C98.  But  it  was  accompawiied  by  the 
very  practical  resolution  of  Parliament,  without  which 
much  of  Duff's  career  would  have  been  very  different, 
that  "  a  sum  of  not  less  than  one  lakh  of  rupees 
(£10,000,  at  par)  in  each  year  shall  be  set  apart  and 
applied  to  the  revival  and  improvement  0^  literature, 
and  the  encouragement  of  the  learned  natives  of  India, 
and  for  the  introduction  and  promotion  of  a  knowledge 
of  the  sciences  among  the  inhabitants  of  the  British 
territories  of  India."  The  chaplain  was  thus  legalized, 
tho  schoolmaster  was  thus  made  possible.  But  it  was 
not  till  1833  that  the  missionary,  the  merchant,  the 
capitalist,  the  Christian  settler  in  any  form  was  recog- 
nised or  tolerated  save  as  an  "interloper" — that  was 
the  official  term — admitted  under  passports,  watched 
by  the  police,  sometimes  deported  and  ruined,  always 
socially  despised. 

The  first  Scottish  chaplain  duly  balloted  for  by  the 
Court  of  Directors,  and  sent  out  to  Calcutta,  was  the 


^t.  23.  DR.   JOHN   INOLIS.  "  37 

Rev.  James  Bryco,  of  Strachan,  in  tho  Presbytery  of 
Kincardinc-O'Noil.     ITo  sailed  in  the  same  East  India- 
man  with  tho  first  bishop  selected  by  tho    Prusidetit 
of  tho  Board   of  Control,  Dr.  Middleton,  who   liked 
neither  his  Presbyterian  brother  nor  the  missionaries 
sent   out   by  tho  Church   Missionary    Society   under 
protection  of  tho  same  charter.     So  littlo  of  a  mission- 
ary spirit  had  tho  first  representa^ivo  of  tho  Church  of 
Scotland  in  India,  that  "  ho  has  no  hesitation  in  con- 
fessing that  ho  went  to  tho  scene  of  his  labours  strongly 
impressed  with  a  belief,  should  ho  step  beyond  tho  pale 
of  his  own  countrymen  ho  would  find  every  attempt 
to  shako  the  Hindoo  in  the  faith  of  his  fathers  to  bo 
futile  and  unavailing."     So  ho  and  Bishop  Middleton 
fell  to  squabbling  about  sects  and  churches,  about  the 
height  of  a  steeple  and  the  name  of  a  church  building, 
till  tho  Governor-Generals,  Cabinet  Ministers  and  tho 
directors  were  dragged  into  the  fray,  and  that  in  a  city 
of  which  the  wise  Claudius  Buchanan  had  written  ten 
years  before,  that  a  name  or  a  sect  was  never  men- 
tioned from  the  pulpit  now  filled  by  tho  Bishop,  '*  and 
thus  the  Word  preached  becomes  profitable  to  all." 

Of  a  very  different  type  was  the  Rev.  John  Inglis,D.D. 
The  minister  of  Old  Greyfriars,  Edinburgh,  was  tho 
one  man  of  the  Moderate  party  in  tho  Church  worthy, 
as  an  ecclesiastic  at  least,  to  rank  with  his  great 
evangelical  contemporaries,  Chalmers,  Andrew  Thom- 
son and  Sir  Harry  Moncreiff.  His  worthiness  lay 
in  the  fact  that,  as  Lord  Cockburn  puts  it,  ho  was  the 
only  leader  of  that  party  whose  opinions  advanced  with 
the  progress  of  the  times.  Ecclesiastically,  in  matters 
of  Kirk  diplomacy,  he  was  a  moderate,  so  that  tho 
same  authority  has  described  his  powerful  qualities 
as  thrown  away  on  the  ignoble  task  of  attempting  to 
repress  the  popular  spirit  of  the  Kirk,  although  these 
would  have   raised   him   high  in  any  department  of 


38  LIFK   or   DC.   DUFF.  1829. 

public  life.  Spiritually,  as  a  preacher,  lie  was  an 
evangelical,  altliongli  before  liis  deatli,  in  1834,  lie  had 
preached  his  church  nearly  empty.  As  an  ecclesiastical 
lawyer,  his  clear  thinkir.g,  lucid  exposition  and  innate 
eloquence,  were  such  as  to  make  his  hearers  forget  his 
tall,  ungainly  figure  and  raucous  voice.  His  fruitless 
intolerance  in  the  Leslie  case  was  due  to  his  party 
in  1805,  and  he  grew  out  of  that  in  the  subsequent 
thirty  years  of  his  career,  to  nobler  work  and  a  finer 
spirit.  That  and  smaller  follies  were  amply  atoned 
for  by  his  foundation  of  the  India  Mission  and  his 
selection  of  the  first  three  missionaries. 

So  early,  comparatively  for  Scotland,  as  1818,  Dr. 
Liglis  preached  a  sermon  in  which  we  find  the  seed  of 
the  foreign  mission  system  of  the  Churcli  of  Scotland, 
and  of  the  call  of  Alexander  Duff.  The  one  glimmer- 
ing missionary  taper  of  the  Kirk  since  the  beginning 
of  the  eighteenth  century  had  been  the  "  Society  in 
Scotland,  Incorporated  by  Royal  Charter,  for  Propa- 
gating Christian  Knowledge."  Although  benefiting 
chiefly  the  Gaelic-speaking  Highlanders,  it  did  spend 
a  few  small  sums  on  an  occasional  missionary  at 
Astrakhan  in  the  East,  and  among  the  Indians  of  the 
AYest,  while  it  gave  grants  to  the  Serampore  and  other 
labourers.  To  preach  the  annual  missionary  sermon 
of  the  society  was  an  honour  reserved  for  the  ablest 
ministers,  who  generally  talked  platitudes  on  education 
or  kept  themselves  to  formal  theology.  But  when  on 
Friday,  the  5th  June,  1818,  Dr.  Inglis  announced  his 
text,  the  spirit  of  unconscious  prediction  moved  him. 
*'  Is  it  a  light  thing,"  were  the  words  which  he  read 
from  Isaiah,  "  that  Thou  shouldest  be  My  servant  to 
raise  up  the  tribes  of  Jacob  and  to  restore  the  pre- 
served of  Israel  ?  I  will  also  give  Thee  for  a  light  to 
the  Gentiles,  that  Thou  maycst  be  My  salvation  unto 
the  end  of  the  earth."     With  triumphant  faith  in  the 


_/Et.  23.  TDE    GEKM    OF   THE    SCOTTISH   MISSION    SYSTEM.        39 

ultimate  universal  prcvabnce  of  ChristiaTiify,  ho  saw 
in  the  prophet's  message  "  the  most  exalted  idea  both 
of  Divine  love  and  humxan  felicity."  In  terms  only 
less  enthusiastic  than  those  which  ever  afterwards 
marked  the  first  missionary  whom  his  Church  was  to 
send  forth,  and  far  removed  from  the  "  moderatism  " 
of  the  ecclesiastical  party  who  claimed  him,  Dr.  Inglis 
showed  how  the  nature  and  the  divine  agencies  of 
Christianity  secured  its  future  universal  dominion,  in 
spite  of  its  very  limited  success  at  that  time.  Among 
these  agencies  he  placed  education  foremost,  not 
because  he  made  the  mistake  attributed  to  him  of 
requiring  civilization  to  precede  Christianity,  but 
because  out  of  converted  savage  races  he  might  thus 
raise  indigenous  preachers,  and  by  means  of  natives 
endowed  with  intellectual  vigour,  and  with  a  capacity 
of  estimating  what  is  just  and  true,  he  might  secure 
more  abiding  and  ultimately  rapid  progress.  Pointing 
to  the  conquest  of  the  Roman  Empire  by  the  Church, 
he  asked  why  our  connection  with  our  commercial 
dependencies  should  be  less  favourable;  upon  what 
principle  we  who  raised  factories  for  trade  concluded 
that  "  establishments  for  the  instruction  and  civiliza- 
tion of  our  benighted  brethren  might  not  be  rendered 
signally  effectual."  The  three  chaplains  sent  to  India 
he  accepted  as  only  an  instalment  ol  the  Church's  and 
the  nation's  duty.  The  translation  of  the  Scriptures 
without  comment  ho  in^ged  as  of  equal  importance 
with  schools.  And  this  was  written  just  before  the 
Serampore  missionaries  had  opened  the  first  Chris- 
tian college,  while  the  sceptical  English  and  educated 
Hindoos  of  Calcutta  were  striving  to  establish  their 
Anglo-Indian  college  on  non-moral  principles,  from 
which  even  the  theist,  Rammohun  Roy,  dissented  as 
fatal  to  the  true  well-being  of  a  people. 
It  was  Ramraohun  Roy,  too,  who  was  tho  instrument 


40  LIFE   OF  DR.    DUFF.  1829. 

of  the  conversion  of  the  first  chaplain,  Dr.  Bryce, 
from  the  opinion  of  the  Abbe  Dubois  that  no  Hindoo 
couM  be  made  a  true  Christiau,  to  the  conviction  that 
the  past  want  of  success  was  largely  owing  to  the 
inaptitude  of  the  means  employed.  Some  nine  years 
after  the  confession  which  we  have  already  quoted, 
we  find  Dr.  Bryce  writing :  "  Encouraged  by  the  ap- 
probation of  Rammohun,"  I  "  presented  to  the  General 
Assembly  of  1824  the  petition  and  memorial  which 
first  directed  the  attention  of  the  Church  of  Scotland 
to  British  India  as  a  field  for  missionary  exertions, 
on  the  plan  that  is  now  so  successfully  following  out, 
and  to  which  this  eminently  gifted  scholar,  himself  a 
Brahman  of  high  caste,  had  specially  annexed  his  sanc- 
tion. .  .  Bammohun  Boy  was  himself  a  hearer  in 
the  Scotch  Church  of  Calcutta."  To  the  minute  of  St. 
Andrew's  kirk-session  on  the  subject  Rammohun  Roy 
appended  this  singular  testimony  on  the  8th  December, 
1823  :  "As  I  have  the  honour  of  being  a  member  of 
the  congregation  meeting  in  St.  Andrew's  Church 
(although  not  fully  concurring  in  every  article  of  the 
"Westminster  Confession  of  Faith),  I  feel  happy  to  have 
an  opportunity  of  expressing  my  opinion  that,  if  the 
prayer  of  the  memorial  is  complied  with,  there  is  a 
fair  and  reasonable  prospect  of  this  measure  proving 
conducive  to  the  diffusion  of  religious  and  moral  know- 
ledge in  India."  But,  in  reality.  Dr.  Bryce's  scheme 
was  one  for  almost  everything  that  Duff's  was  not. 
His  plan  of  a  "  Scottish  College "  was  dictated  by 
sectarian  hostility  to  the  Bishop's  College  of  his  rival. 
Dr.  Middleton.*  His  proposal  condemned  schools 
for  *'  the  lower  and  illiterate  classes  of  the  Hindoos  " 
as  strongly  as  the  Abbe  himself  had  done,  and  urged 


*  See  Memorial  and  Petition,  at  page  284  of  liis  Sketch  of  Native 
Education  in  India. 


^t.  23.  MISSIONARY  LETTER  TO  THE  PEOPLE  OP  SCOTLAND.    4! 

"  addressing  the  better  informed  natives  at  this  capital 
in  their  own  language,  and  from  under  the  roof  of  an 
established  Christian  temple,  and  under  the  sanction 
and  countenance  of  an  established  .ecclesiastical  au- 
thority." The  secular  ecclesiastic  desired,  in  fact,  to 
create  such  a  college  for  himself  "  by  the  maintenance 
of  two  or  more  probationers  or  clergymen  of  our 
Ciuirch,  under  the  ecclesiastical  superintendence  of 
the  kirk-session  of  St.  Andrew's  Church,  to  be  edu- 
cated under  their  eye  in  the  native  languages  of  the 
country,  and  employed  under  tlioir  authority,  when 
duly  qualified,  to  preach,  from  the  pulpit  of  St.  An- 
drew's Church,  to  such  native  congregation  as  might 
attend  their  ministry." 

Dr.  Inglis  and  the  General  Assembly  of  1825  were 
less  informed  as  to  the  actual  state  of  society  in  Ben- 
gal and  Calcutta  than  their  chaplain  on  the  spot,  but, 
being  free  from  his  ecclesiastical  vanities  and  enmities, 
they  drew  up  a  much  wiser  plan,  though  one  still  far 
from  adequate  to  the  needs  and  opportunities  of  India 
at  the  time.  They  pronounced  it  desirable  to  establish, 
in  the  first  instance,  one  central  seminary  of  education, 
with  branch  schools  in  the  surrounding  country,  for 
behoof  of  the  children  of  the  native  population,  under 
one  who  ought  to  be  an  ordained  minister  of  the  national 
Church,  and  not  less  than  two  assistant  teachers  from 
this  country.  That  General  Assembly  re-appointed  the 
committee  of  Dr.  Inglis  upon  the  propagation  of  the 
gospel  abroad  as  a  permanent  body,  with  power  to 
raise  funds  and  select  masters.  It  ordered  an  extra- 
ordinary collection  in  all  churches  and  chapels  for  the 
purpose,  thus  adding  to  the  "  great  schemes  "  of  the 
Kirk,  or  the  Highlands,  the  Home  and  the  Colonial, 
the  fourth  and  greatest  of  Foreign  Missions.  And  on 
April  2Gth  Dr.  Inglis,  as  convener  of  the  new  com- 
mittee, issued  a  letter  "  to  the  People  of  Scotland," 


42  LIFE   OP   DR.    DUFF.  1829. 

apologising  for  "  our  forefathers,"  since  perchance 
their  utmost  exertions  were  not  more  than  sufficient 
for  estabUshing  themselves  and  their  posterity  in  the 
liberty  wherewith  Christ  hath  made  us  free ;  pointing 
to  the  recent  missionary  efforts  of  otlier  religious  com- 
munities, and  summoning  the  nation  in  the  name  of 
the  General  Assembly  to  do  its  duty.  Appealing  to 
the  facts  stated  in  the  fifth  report  of  the  Calcutta 
School  Book  Society,  founded  in  1817,  and  in  the 
*'  History  of  Calcutta  Institutions,"  by  Mr.  Charles 
Lushington,  one  of  the  secretaries  to  Government, 
the  national  letter  mentioned  schools  for  the  educa- 
tion in  English  of  natives  of  both  sexes,  and  colleges 
to  train  a  more  select  number  to  be  the  teachers  and 
preachers,  as  the  best  means  for  sowing  a  great 
spiritual  harvest  which  may  "  be  reaped  by  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Redeemer's  kingdom  over  the  exten- 
sive regions  of  Asia.  Yet  let  it  not  be  inferred  from 
our  having  said  so  much  about  schools  and  other 
seminaries  of  education,  that  we  for  a  moment  lose 
sight  of  the  more  direct  means  of  accomplishing  our 
object,  by  the  preaching  of  the  gospel  to  the  heathen 
world.  .  .  It  is  in  subserviency  to  the  success  of 
preaching  that  we  would,  in  this  case,  devote  our  labour 
to  the  education  of  the  young/'  The  whole  letter,  and 
especially  the  evangelic  note  of  the  predicted  triumph 
with  which  it  closes,  show  the  same  spirit  which 
eight  years  before  had  preached,  but  with  necessarily 
less  information,  of  the  ultimate  and  universal  pre- 
valence of  the  Redeemer's  kingdom.  But  though  the 
aims  and  the  proposals  of  Dr.  Inglis  were  very  dif- 
ferent from  those  of  Dr.  Bryce,  we  shall  see  how  far 
both  fell  short  of  the  genias  of  the  first  missionary, 
who  refused  to  be  fettered  by  any  conditions. 

With  the  exception  of  the  Campbells  of  Argyll,  and, 
for  a  time,  those  of  Breadalbane  and  tho  Stuarts  of 


^t.  23.   niS   ANSWER   TO   THE    LETTER   TO  THE    TEOrLE.        43 

Moray,  the  peers  of  Scotland  have  been  so  seldom  in 
their  proper  places  as  the  natural  leaders  of  the 
people,  that  it  is  pleasant  to  be  able  to  record  the  part 
taken  in  the  foundation  of  its  India  Mission  by  the 
Haddington  branch  of  the  ducal  house  of  Hamilton. 
The  ninth  earl,  when  still  Lord  IJinniuGf  and  one  of 
the  commissioners  of  the  old  Board  of  Control,  used 
all  his  otlicial  influence  to  encourage  Dr.  Inglis  iu  his 
efforts  for  the  Christian  education  of  the  natives  of 
Bengal.  The  harmony  of  the  Church  and  the  Board 
in  measures  for  the  good  of  India,  was  not  disturbed, 
as  was  too  often  the  case  in  other  reforms,  by  tlio 
Court  of  Directors,  for  Charles  Grant  was  then 
supreme  in  influence  with  the  "  chairs."  Lord  Bin- 
ning had  at  this  time  made  the  acquaintance  in  Home 
of  the  young  Bunsen,  "  for  whom  he  has  a  great 
liking  and  value,"  says  the  Baroness  of  her  husband, 
and  he  was  afterwards  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland. 

Alexander  Duff's  answer  to  this  letter  to  the  people 
of  Scotland  was  to  give  himself — not,  indeed,  to  the 
new  committee  for  a  time,  but  to  the  Master,  to  bo 
used  as  His  minister  wherever  amonof  the  Gentiles  Ho 
might  send  him.  But  all  his  sympathies  were  with 
the  natives  of  India.  "  It  was,"  ho  long  afterwards 
told  his  converts*  when  bnldimi-^thttm  a  life  don  f^ftire-  * 
well,  "  when  a  student  at  college,  in  perusing  the 
article  on  India*  in  Sir  David  Brewster's  "  Edinburgli 
Encyclopa)dia,"  that  my  soul  was  first  drawn  out  as  by 

*  The  article  is  a  wonderfully  elaborate  and  intelligent  perform- 
ance for  that  time.  In  a  hundred  double-columu  quarto  pages 
the  writer,  Mv.  Stevenson,  librarian  of  the  Treasury,  writes  tlio  his- 
tory, describes  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  European  establishments, 
states  the  geographical  and  statistical  facts,  pictures  the  Hindoo 
religion,  social  iustitutionn  and  languages,  and  closes  with  details  of 
the  population  of  Bengal  and  Calcutta.  The  whole  ai'ticlo  is  worthy 
of  the  work  m  which  Thomas  Carlyle  began  his  literary  career. 


44  I^IFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1829. 

a  spell-liko  fascination  towards  India.  And  when,  at 
a  later  j3eriod,  I  was  led  to  respond  to  the  call  to 
proceed  to  India  as  the  first  missionary  ever  sent 
forth  by  the  Established  National  Church  of  Scotland, 
rny  resolution  was,  if  the  Lord  so  willed  it,  never, 
never  to  return  again." 

Session  after  session,  as  he  had  returned  from  the 
winter's  study  at  St.  Andrews  to  the  quiet  of  his 
Grampian  homo,  the  student  had  delighted  his  parents 
with  details  of  his  domgs.  John  Urquhart  had  always 
been  first  in  his  talk.  Especially  had  his  father  been 
struck  with  admiration  at  that  student's  determination 
to  be  a  missionary  to  the  Hindoos.  In  1827  the 
usual  budget  of  iutePigence  was  produced,  but  as 
the  parents  hung  on  their  sou's  revelations,  now  with 
tears,  now  with  smiles,  and  ever  with  thankfulness 
and  pride,  the  loved  name  of  his  Jonathan  was  not 
once  mentioned.  "  But  what  of  your  friend  Urqu- 
hart ?"  at  last  exclaimed  the  father.  "  Urquhart  is  no 
more,"  said  Duff  with  the  almost  stern  abruptness 
of  self-restraint,  and  then  slowly,  wistfully  added, 
*'  What  if  your  son  should  take  up  his  cloak  ? 
You  approved  the  motive  that  directed  the  choice  of 
UrquluiTi} ;  you  ^ommende^  h;s  high  p»irposo, — ;-  .The 
cloak  is  taken  up."  Mother  and  father  were  awed 
into  silence  at  this,  the  first  breaking  to  them,  or  to 
man,  of  the  vow  that  had  already  been  made  to  God.* 

So  the  missionary  mantle  fell  in  circumstances  very 
unlike  Elijah's  and  Elisha's.     He  knew  that  they  had 

*  Our  authority  for  this  most  eignificanC  anecdote  is  the  Rev. 
and  now  venerable  Andrew  Wallace,  long  minister  of  Oldham- 
stocks,  who  has  extracted  the  facts  from  a  diarywritten  while  Duff's 
parents  were  still  alive.  In  prco-railway  days,  on  a  journey  from 
Hawick  to  Edinburgh,  his  companion  on  the  top  of  the  coach  proved 
to  be  a  Highlander  from  Moulin,  who,  having  lived  in  the  house  next 
to  Duff's,  and  loving  him  much,  told  Mr.  Wallace  the  story. 


^t.  23.  DECLARES  HIS  DETERMINATION  TO  BE  A  MISSIONAUY.    45 

set  their  heart  upon  his  being  a  minister  in  the  High- 
lands, and  tliat  ho  had  a  prospect  of  not  being  long 
without  a  parish.  Ho  had  therefore  considered,  before 
God,  what  his  course  of  duty  should  be  towards  them, 
and  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  he  ought  to  have 
no  dealings  in  such  a  matter  with  flesh  and  blood. 
Moved  chiefly  by  what  he  afterwards  termed  the  grand 
utterance  of  Christ,  "  If  any  man  love  father  or 
mother  more  than  Mo  ho  is  not  worthy  of  Me,"  Diilf 
thus  anticipated  all  remonstrance.  At  first  they  were 
overwhelmed,  in  spite  of  all  the  father's  early  teaching 
on  the  various  mission  fields,  and  especially  that  of 
India ;  for  they  were  parents  wisely  proud  of  their 
student  son's  reputation,  and  fondly  indulging  in  tlio 
prospect  of  his  settlement  near  themselves.  But  calm 
reflection  brought  them  to  acquiesce  in  the  deliberate 
choice  and  solemn  announcement  of  the  young  evange- 
list as  the  will  of  God,  and  they  lived  to  rejoice  in  the 
surrender  of  themselves  and  their  boy. 

The  case  of  India  came  very  close  to  him  when, 
during  the  subsequent  session  of  1827-28,  Principal 
Haldano  laid  before  him  a  letter  from  Dr.  Inc^lis,  who 
had,  thus  far,  been  unsuccessful  in  inducing  any 
ministel'  or  prt^acher  of  thb  Church  of  Scotland  to  offer 
himself  for  Calcutta,  although  students  like  Nesbit 
and  Wilson  were  preparing  to  bo  sent  out  to  Bombay 
by  the  Scottish,  and  others  by  the  London  Missionary 
Society.  Dr.  Haldane  pronounced  the  third  year's 
student  of  theology  precisely  the  man  that  the  Church's 
committee  wanted.  But  Duff  declined,  from  his 
youth  and  inexperience,  to  commit  himself  to  any 
definite  station  until  his  studies  were  completed.  A 
year  after,  in  the  spring  of  1829,  the  proposal  was 
again  made  to  him  ;  this  time  by  Dr.  Ferric,  Professor 
of  Civil  History,  and  minister  of  Kilconquhar.  IIo 
thus  turned  for  counsel  to  Dr.  Chalmers  : — 


46  LIFE    OF    DIl.    DUFF.  1829. 


{( 


St.  An'dk'kws,  12//^  March,  1820. 

**  Ili:v.  AND  DuAU  Sir, — In  redemption  of  a  pledge 
formerly  given,  and  encouraged  by  your  kind  reply,  I 
sliould  now  endeavour  to  communicate  whatever  local 
intelligence  can  bo  collected  since  the  writing  of  my 
last  letter.  But  i  trust  that,  though  such  communi- 
cation be  deferred  for  the  present,  I  will  be  exonerated 
f  I'om  the  charge  of  neglect,  by  a  desire  to  make  known 
without  delay  the  following  particulars.  Unexpected 
as  they  are  in  their  nature,  [ind  deciding,  as  they  ap- 
pear to  do,  my  future  destiny  in  life,  I  trust  you  will 
excuse  their  exclusive  e^'otism. 

"  About  three  weeks  ago  I  was  sent  for  by  Dr. 
Ferric,  who  stated  that  he  had  received  a  letter  from  a 
cousin  of  his,  asking  his  advice  as  to  the  propriety  of 
going  out  to  superintend  the  Assembly's  scheme  for 
propagating  the  gospel  in  India,  and  that  he  dissuaded 
him  from  going,  for,  although  he  was  satisfied  as  to 
his  piety  and  '^.cal,  yet  he  knew  ho  wanted  several  other 
qualifications  that  were  indispensably  necessary.  Im- 
mediately, he  said,  I  occurred  to  him  as  a  person  well 
fitted  for  such  a  sacred  and  important  station,  and 
accordingly  Tie  made  the  proposal  to  mo  of  going  to 
India  to  take  charge  of  the  new  establishment.  A 
proposal  so  weighty  was  neither  to  be  precipitately 
rejected,  nor  inconsiderately  acceded  to.  I  therefore 
assured  him  I  would  solemnly  deliberate  on  the 
measure,  would  wait  for  more  definite  information  re- 
garding its  precise  nature,  and  in  the  meantime  would 
make  it  the  subject  of  prayer.  On  the  subject  of 
im'ssions  in  general,  I  have  read  much  and  thought 
much,  and  in  regard  both  to  the  sacredness  of  the 
cause  and  the  propriety  of  personal  engagement,  my 
mind  has  long  been  entirely  satisfied ;  nay  more,  on 
often  revolving  the  matter,  a  kind  of  ominous  fore- 
boding mingled  so  constantly  with  my  thoughts,  that 


ALt.  23.    INl'OKMS  CJIALIIEKS  THAT  HE  WILL  GO  TO  INDIA.      47 

it  became  an  .almost  settled  impression  that  tlio  chiy 
was  not  far  distant  vvhen  I  would  feel  it  to  bo  my  duty 
to  adopt  the  decisive  step  of  devotiiii^  my  life  to  tho 
sacred  cause.  In  these  circumstances  and  with  these 
feelings  nouglit  remained  in  the  present  instance  but 
to  inquire,  seriously  and  prayerfully  to  inquire, 
*  whether  do  I  consciously  feel  myself  ]iossessed  of 
tho  qualifications  necessary  to  constitute  the  truo  mis- 
sionary character?*  and  'whether  can  I  accept  of  tho 
offered  appointment,  uuactuated  by  any  but  tho  proper 
motives,  a  desiro  to  promote  God's  glory  and  tho 
Avelfare  of  immortal  souls?'  Now,  were  this  a  matter 
which  required  merely  human  consultation  or  advice, 
you,  my  dear  sir,  are  tho  tried  friend  on  whose  readi- 
ness in  giving  advice,  as  well  as  its  soundness  when 
given,  I  could  most  confidently  rely.  But  I  hope  that 
I  acted  in  accordance  with  your  views,  when  I  con- 
cluded that  the  present  inquiry  rested  almost  solely 
between  myself  and  I'ny  Maker.  With  this  view  of  tli© 
case  and  in  this  spirit  the  inquiry  was  certainly  con- 
ducted. And  the  result  was,  that,  weak  as  is  my 
faith  and  secularized  as,  I  must  confess,  are  all  my 
desires,  I  yet  felt  I  could  find  it  in  my  heart  to  devote 
myself  to  tho  service  of  tho  Lord,  undivided  by  any 
worldly  tie  and  uninfluenced  by  any  mercenary  motive. 
"  The  inquiry  as  to  the  motives  being  brought  to 
this  conclusion,  at  which  may  the  Lord  grant  that  I 
have  not  arrived  through  any  self-deception,  the  other 
inquiry,  respecting  the  requisite  qualifications,  was  by 
no  means  concluded  so  much  to  my  own  satisfaction. 
But  on  further  reflection  on  the  subject,  the  exceeding 
precious  promises  of  God  appeared  to  rebuke  my  dis- 
trustful vacillating  spirit ;  and  I  seemed  to  have  tho 
faith — I  trust  it  was  not  the  presumption — to  conclude 
that,  if  I  engaged  in  the  work  with  full  sincerity  of 
soul,  by  faith  accompanied  with  prayer,  God's  grace 


48  LIFE   OF   DIl.    DUFF.  1829. 

might  bo  sufTicicnt  for  mo,  and  ITis  strength  might  bo 
made  perfect  in  my  weakness.  In  this  frame  of  mind, 
therefore,  I  resolved,  if  offered  the  appointment,  to  ac- 
cept of  it.  Tliis  offer  was  not  long  in  being  virtually 
made.  On  Wednesday,  last  week,  Dv.  Ferrio  received 
a  letter  from  Dr.  Muir  (Dr.  Inglis,  the  convener  of  the 
committee,  being  unwell),  which  among  other  things 
contained  the  following  clauses  :  *  Dr.  Inglis  intimated 
his  earnest  desire  to  know  from  you  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible what  may  be  the  determination  of  Mr.  Duff.  Tlio 
Doctor  is  satisfied  by  all  you  have  said  that  he  is  tho 
very  person  fitted  for  the  important  purpose,  and  ho 
is  therefore  extremely  anxious  to  receive  Mr.  Duff's 
decision  on  the  side  of  the  offer;  as  he  is  not  able  to 
occupy  himself  with  the  routine  of  ordinary  duty,  his 
mind  is  exercised  with  almost  a  keen  feeling  of  anxiety 
on  the  Indian  scheme.  If  you  can  write  to  me  soon, 
and  especially  if  you  can  send  me  any  encouraging  in- 
telligence from  Mr.  D.,  your  letter  on  the  subject  will 
be  very  acceptable  to  him.*  From  this  you  perceive 
that  the  offer  was  fairly  laid  at  my  door,  and  that  a 
definite  answer  was  required  as  soon  as  possible. 
And  having  already  made  up  my  own  mind  on  the 
subject,  I  lost  no  time  in  visiting  my  friends,  in  order 
to  justify  to  them  a  conduct  to  which  I  knew  they 
would  feel  a  strong  aversion.  I  have  now  returned, 
after  having  succeeded  in  securing  their  concurrence, 
and  have  thus  endeavoured  to  present  you  with  a  brief 
statement  of  all  that  has  transpired 

"I  am  now  prepared  to  reply  to  the  committee  in  the 
words  of  the  prophet,  *  Here  am  I,  send  me.'  The  work  is 
most  arduous,  but  is  of  God  and  must  prosper ;  many 
sacrifices  painful  to  *flesh  and  blood'  must  be  made,  but 
not  any  correspondent  to  the  glory  of  winning  souls  to 
Christ.  With  the  thought  of  this  glory  I  feel  myself 
almost  transported  with  joy;  every  thing  else  appears  to 


ALt.  23.  SELF-DliVOTlON.  49 

fall  out  of  view  as  vaia  and  insinfnificant.  The  kinoes 
and  great  men  of  the  earth  have  reared  the  sculptured 
monument  and  the  lofty  pyramid  with  tho  vain  hope 
of  transmitting  their  names  witli  reverence  to  succeed- 
ing generations;  and  yet  the  sculptured  monument 
and  the  lofty  pyramid  do  crumble  into  decay,  and  must 
finally  bo  burnt  up  in  the  general  wreck  of  dissolving 
nature;  but  he  who  has  been  tho  means  of  subduing 
one  soul  to  tho  Cross  of  Christ,  hath  reared  a  far  moro 
enduring  monument — a  monument  that  will  outlast  all 
time,  and  survive  the  widespread  ruins  of  ten  thousand 
worlds ;  a  trophy  which  is  destined  to  bloom  and  flourish 
in  immortal  youth  in  the  land  of  immortality,  and  which 
will  perpetuate  tho  remembrance  of  him  who  raised  it 
throughout  the  boundless  duration  of  eternal  ages. 

"But  I  am  wandering,  and  have  almost  forgotten 
that  I  am  writing  a  letter  and  not  a  discourse.  I  trust, 
however,  that  you,  who  know  human  nature  so  well, 
will  grant  me  every  indulgence  when  you  take  into  ac- 
count the  present  freshness  and  excitation  of  my  feel- 
ings. My  heart  is  full ;  would  to  God  that  it  continued 
so,  as  out  of  the  abundance  of  the  heart  the  mouth 
speaketh  !  As  the  active  members  of  committee  sc^m 
to  have  formed  a  favourable  opinion  of  me,  anything 
which  you  may  feel  yourself  entitled  to  say  calculated 
to  confirm  that  opinion,  or  any  opportunity  which  you 
may  have  it  in  your  power  to  take  of  making  known  my 
sentiments  on  the  present  important  subject,  will  be 
viewed  as  a  token  of  kindness,  surpassed  only  by  the 
many  already  experienced  at  your  hands,  most  unde- 
served on  my  part.  But  I  am  almost  disgusted  with 
this  continued  tissue  of  selfishness,  and  must  endeavour 
to  atone  for  it  in  my  next  communication.  Please  pre- 
sent my  kindest  regards  to  Mrs.  Chalmers  and  family, 
and  Miss  Edio,  and  1  remain,  rev.  and  dear  sir,  yours 
with  deep  feelings  of  gratitude,  Alexander  Duff." 


50  LIFK   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1829. 

But  lio  was  Dot  tlio  man  to  yii'ld  liimsolf  blindly  to 
conditions  wliicli  niitj^lit  fcttiT  his  action  in  a  new  field, 
and  ncutralizo  all  that  was  ori;j^inal  or  strong  in  liis 
nature,  lie  required  to  bo  assured,  first,  that  he  should 
be  -wholly  unshackled  in  the  modes  of  meeting  and 
operating  on  the  natives;  and  secondly,  in  particular 
that  ho  should  be  entirely  independent  of  the  chaplains 
and  kirk-scssion  of  Calcutta.  Ilis  foresight  in  these 
Tiost  wise  provisions  proved  equal  to  his  self-devotion, 
and  enabled  that  devotion  to  accomplish  all  that  his 
genius  was  peculiarly  fitted  to  attenq)t.  Alexander 
Dull:  in  trammels  would  have  meant  shipwreck  of  the 
mission.  To  these  terms  Dr.  Inglis  consented,  and 
with  sucb  utter  trust  that  the  dilliculty  afterwards  was 
to  receive  instructions  of  any  kind  from  the  Church. 
Referred  in  vain  to  Dr.  David  Dickson  as  likely,  from 
his  experience  of  the  Scottish  Society,  to  enter  into 
useful  details,  the  first  missionary  of  the  Church  of 
Scotland  went  out  to  Calcutta  with  oidy  one  injunction 
laid  upon  him,  which  it  became  his  duty  to  violate  the 
moment  he  saw  the  country  and  the  people  for  him- 
self. That  order  was,  not  to  settle  in  the  metropolis 
itself  but  in  a  rural  district  of  Bengal. 

The  committee  had  a  rule,  that  they  must  formally 
jiear  a  man  preach  before  ordaining  him  as  a  mis- 
.sionary.  Accordingly,  at  a  week-day  evening  service 
then  conducted  in  one  of  the  churches  into  which  a 
barbarous  ecclesiasticism  has  divided  the  once  bcau- 
liful  Presbyterian  cathedral  of  St.  Giles,  the  Rev. 
Alexander  Duff,  M.A.,  licentiate  of  the  Kirk,  preached 
his  first  sermon,  before  Dr.  Inglis  and  Dr.  Andrew 
Thomson,  representatives  of  the  two  great  parties 
in  the  Church,  and  the  only  members  of  committee 
present.  The  text  was  that  word  of  St.  Paul,  in  which 
he  and  all  his  true  successors  have  planted  the  mis- 
sionary  standard,  from  Corinth  west  to  Columba  on 


AH.23.  DANIKL  WILSON.  DIl. CUNNINGHAM.    EDWAUI)  HIVING.  5  I 

lona,  and  east  to  Duflf  in  Calcutta :  "  I  doti'rmim'd 
not  to  know  anytliinjif  among  you  save  Josus  Christ 
and  llini  crucified."  Mr.  Diiif  breakfasted  with  Dr. 
('Iiahners  on  the  niornijig  after  the  great  orator  had 
made  tliat  cmanci[)ation  speech  wliich  carried  not  only 
h^diiiburgh  but  the  wliole  country  by  storm.  Of  this 
speech  the  Duko  of  Wellington,  then  L^'imo  INIinister, 
caused  105,000  coi)ies  to  be  printed  and  circulated 
throughout  the  country.  At  that  time  also  (he  rc>print 
of  Baxter's  *'  Reformed  Pastor"  had  apj)eared,  forming 
one  of  the  series  of  Collins's  Select  (Miristiun  Authors, 
with  the  introductory  essay  by  Bishop  Wilson  ot' 
Calcutta,  then  Daniel  AVilson,  vicar  of  Islington.  Dr. 
Chalmers  luid  just  finished  tlie  perusal  of  it,  and  said  iu 
his  own  blunt  way,  "  In  this  essay  Daniel  Wilson  has 
risen  far  above  himself."  On  the  same  occasion  there 
was  a  meeting  of  students  held  in  one  of  the  class- 
I'ooms  of  the  University,  which  Duff  had  the  curiosity 
to  attend.  There  for  tlic  first  time  he  saw  and  lieard 
Principal  Cuimingham,  then  a  student  of  theology, 
speak.  He  was  so  struck  with  the  close,  comjiact,  argii- 
inentative  power  of  the  address,  that  he  remarked,  "that 
man,  if  spared,  vv^ill  be  sure  to  shine  forth  as  a  great 
ecclesiastical  debater."  Then,  too,  ho  received  his 
first  impressions  of  Edward  Irving,  being  more  than 
once  one  of  the  crowd  who  got  up  on  a  winter's  morn- 
ing at  four  o'clock  to  besiege  the  gates  of  St.  Cuth- 
bert's,  for  a  place  to  hear  Thomas  Carlyle's  inspired 
friend,  whom  ho  pronounced  worthy  of  his  marvellous 
reputation. 

The  report  read  by  Dr.  Inglis  to  the  Assembly  of 
1829,  buried  in  old  records  and  magazines  from  which 
we  have  exhumed  it,  declared  that  what  the  committee 
had  wanted  in  its  first  missionary  was  "  nothing  less 
than  a  combination  of  the  distinguished  talents  requi- 
site for  that  oOice  (head  of  a  college),  with  such  dis- 


52  L1F2   OF   DE.    DUFF.  1829. 

interested  zeal  for  the  propagation  of  the  gospel  as 
could  induce  a  highly  gifted  individual  to  foiegothe 
prospect  of  a  settlement  at  home  corresponding  to  his 
merits,  for  the  purpose  of  devoting  himself  to  labour 
in  a  distant  land,  without  any  prospect  of  earthly 
reward  beyond  what  should  be  indispensably  necessary 
to  his  outward  respectability  in  the  society  with  which 
he  was  to  mingle."  This  subsistence  allowance  was 
nxed  at  £300  a  year  and  a  free  house,  *'  as  the  least 
that  could  be  reasonably  proffered,"  in  the  year  1829. 

The  committee  then  described  "  Mr.  Alexander  Duff, 
preacher  of  the  gospel,"  whom  they  had  found  "  after 
long-continued  inquiry  and  much  patient  waiting," 
as  "  a  person  possessed  of  such  talents  and  acquire- 
ments, literary,  scientific  and  theological,  as  would  do 
honour  to  any  station  in  the  Church ;  who  also  com- 
bines with  these  the  prudence  and  discretion  which  are 
so  peculiarly  requisite  in  the  discharge  of  the  duties 
which  will  devolve  upon  him ;  and  is,  at  the  same  time, 
animated  with  such  zeal  in  the  cause  to  which  he 
devotes  himself,  as  to  make  him  think  lightly  of  all  the 
advantages  which  he  foregoes  in  leaving  his  native 
laud."  The  self-dedication  of  the  young  preacher  was 
made  a  reason  for  a  renewed  appeal  to  the  congrega- 
tions of  the  Kirk  to  do  their  duty.  Not  half  of  them — 
only  400 — had  subscribed,  and  that  but  £5,000  in  three 
years.  *'  The  natives  of  India,"  they  were  told,  "  are 
our  fellow  subjects,  members  of  the  same  grefit  com- 
monwealth to  which  we  belong,  dependent  upon  the 
fostering  care  of  the  same  government  under  which  we 
live.  Shall  not  this  consideration  find  its  way  to  the 
heart  of  a  Briton  ?  .  .  Our  exertions  for  this  be- 
nevolent purpose  may  even  have  the  effect  to  sanctify, 
in  the  sight  of  Heaven,  the  government  .  .  f^nd 
to  prolon;^',  for  the  benefit  of  many  generations,  tuo 
interesting  relation  in  which  we  stand  to  so  huge  a 


.^t.  23.  ORDINATION    BY    DR.    CHALMERS.  53 

portion  of  tlie  human  race.  What  would  the  fathers  of 
our  Churclx  have  said  if,  looking  forward  to  a  period 
of  such  internal  peace  and  prosperity  as  it  now  enjoys, 
they  could  have  supposed  that  the  men  whc  now  fill 
tlieir  places  in  the  world,  would  not  even  aim  at 
participating  in  the  high  honour  of  being  instrumental 
in  the  hand  of  God  for  promotyig  the  enlargement  of 
the  Redeemer's  kingdom  on  earth?"  Who  shall  say 
that  the  convener  who  wrote,  and  the  Assembly  who 
heartily  adopted  such  language  as  that,  had  not  a  truly 
imperial  spirit  in  the  highest  sense.  Christian  as  well 
as  political  ?  The  response  had  waited  only  for  the 
man.  Mr.  Duff's  ordination  resulted  in  the  offer,  by 
not  a  few  parislies,  of  that  annual  collection  which,  in 
the  three  temporarily  severed  but  heartily  co-operating 
branches  of  the  Kir^  of  Scotland,  has  risen  to  a  gross 
revenue  for  foreign  missions  of  nearly  £100,000  a  year. 

The  General  Assembly  of  May,  1829,  cordially  and 
unanimously  appointed  Mr.  Duff  their  first  mission- 
ary, and  his  ordination  in  St.  George's  followed  on 
the  12th  of  August,  Dr.  Chalmers  officiating  on  the 
historic  occasion.  Dr.  Harper,  the  venerable  Principal 
of  the  United  Presbyterian  College,  still  recalls  the 
marvellous  speech  delivered  by  the  new  missionary, 
then  a  young  man  of  twenty-three,  on  his  formal 
designation  to  the  East.  With  such  force  and  fire, 
such  energy  and  action,  did  the  rapt  enthusiast  picture 
the  work  to  which  he  was  giving  his  life,  that  Dr. 
Harper  feared  he  would  too  soon  waste  himself  away 
in  the  heat  of  the  tropics. 

From  not  a  few  pulpits  and  platforms  before  his 
departure  for  India  he  delivered  missionary  discourses 
and  appeals,  which  roused  a  new  spirit  in  the  country, 
and  have  left  behind  them,  in  the  long  half-century 
since  they  were  uttered,  the  echo  of  such  a  burst  of 
self-dedication  as  this  in  the  fine  old  kirk  of  Leuchars, 


54  LIFE   OP  Dli.    DUrP.  1829. 

where,  preaching  from  Romans  i.  14,  "  I  am  debtor  both 
to  tlie  Greeks  and  to  the  Barbarians,"  he  exclaimed — 
"  There  was  a  time  when  I  had  no  care  or  concern 
for  the  heathen  :  that  was  a  time  when  I  liad  no  care 
or  concern  for  my  own  soul  When  by  the  grace  of 
God  I  was  led  to  caro  for  my  own  soul,  then  it  was  I 
began  to  care  for  the  Jieathen  abroad.  In  my  closet, 
on  my  bended  knees,  I  then  said  to  God,  '0  Lord, 
Tliou  knowest  that  silver  and  gold  to  give  to  this 
cause  I  have  none ;  what  I  have  I  give  unto  Thee, — I 
offer  Thee  myself,  wilt  Thou  accept  tL>  gift  ?  '  "  The 
hearer  who  recalls  this,  adds,  "  I  think  I  see  him,  with 
tears  trickling  down  his  checks  as  he  uttered  theso 
words.  Afterwards  I  walked  from  Dundee  to  St- 
Andrews,  and  went  to  his  Sabbath  school,  when  ho 
gave  a  very  afTccting  address  th  his  class  of  young 
people,  urging  them  to  remember  him  in  their  prayers 
as  he  would  them  in  his,  and  the  same  God  who  heard 
them  would  hear  him  in  India." 

To  Mrs.  Briggs  and  other  friends  who  presented  him 
with  that  Baofster's  Bible  which  had  afterwards  so  event- 
ful  a  history,  he  wrote  : — "  I  surely  can  never  forget  St. 
Andrews.  Endeared  by  many  interesting  associations, 
and  linked  to  my  soul  by  the  fondest  recollections  of 
kindness  and  friendship  and  Christian  fellowship,  it 
would  argue  a  destitution  of  all  principle  and  of  all 
feeling  did  I  ever  wholly  forget  it.  And  if,  amid  the 
cares  and  the  employments  of  an  arduous  but  Tlorious 
undertaking  in  a  foreign  land,  the  fieshness  of  x  ^eling 
be  apt  to  become  languid,  and  the  vividness  of  mcmcry 
to  fade,  the  daily  obtrusion  on  the  eye  of  sense  of  a 
memorial  like  the  present  cannot  fail  to  quicken  the 
languishing  feelings,  and  revive  the  fading  impres- 
sions on  the  memory.  What  is  more :  the  daily 
perusal  of  that  blessed  book,  which,  in  its  present 
adventitious  connection,  must  serve  as  the  reviver  of 


^.t.  23.  TO   FATHER   AND    MOTUER.  53 

what  had  a  tciidency  to  decay,  and  tho  remombrancci' 
of  friends  that  are  far  distant,  will  invest  these  im- 
pressions with  a  sacredness,  and  those  feelings  with  a 
hallowedness,  to  the  possession  of  which  they  could 
not  otherwise  have  any  claim." 

The    decision  of  the    General    Assembly,    and    the 
arrangements  which  followed  it,  led  him  thus  to  address 
his  fiithcr,  wlio  had  watched  with  a  grateful  pride  the 
consecration  of  the  son  to  a  higher  than  an  ecclesiastical 
bishopric  of  souls  : — "  Pray  with  redoubled  earnestness 
that  I  may  be  strengthened  with  all  might  in  the  inner 
man,  and  with  all  grace  and  all  divine  knowledge,  that 
I  may  be  enabled  to  approve  myself  a  good  and  a 
valiant  soldier  of  the  Cross,  and  not  merely  a  common 
soldier  but  a  champion.     Oh  !  that  I  breathed  a  nobler 
spirit,  and  were  filled  with  a  more  fervent  and  devoted 
zeal,  and  were  more  humbled  on  account  of  my  vilcness 
and  unworthiness,  and  were  clinging  more  closely  to 
my  Saviour."      Tho  natural  affection  of  his  mother 
lie  thus  reasoned  with :  "  Beware  of  making  an  idol 
of  me.     AVhilo  you  feel  all  the  tenderness  of  parental 
love  which  the  faith  of  tho  gospel,  far  from  extirpating, 
strengthens,  sanctifies,  and  refines,  be  earnest  in  prayer 
to  God  that  Satan  may  not  tempt  you  to  raise  me  to 
an  undue  place  in  your  affections,  lest  God,  in  His  holy 
displeasure,  see  fit  to  remove  mo  not  only  to  India, 
but    to   the   land  of   skulls  anu  sepulchres.      Think 
then,  ponder,  pray   over  these  things,  and  may  God 
Himself  guide  and  direct  you  into  the  ways  of  peace 
and    heavenly    resignation.      Your    account    of    the 
people    about    Moulin    has  driven   me   to   pray,  and 
humbled  me  in  the  dust.     Lord,   what  am  I  that  I 
should  bo  so  highly  honor.red  as  to  be  made  the  in- 
strument of  conveying  such  truths  as  were  calculated 
to  arouse,  to  awaken,  to  edify  ?     Merit,  is  it  said  ? 
No,  no,  had  I  any  more  tlian  tlio  hollowed  channel 


56  LIFE   OF   DE.    DUFF.  1829. 

of  tlie  river  along  wliicli  are  inaclo  to  flow  tliose 
streams  tbat  enrich  and  fertilize  the  neighbouring 
lands  ? "  Again  when  leaving  Scotland  he  thus 
poured  out  all  the  sacred  confidences  and  trust  of 
his  heart : — 

"EniNBUEon,  25t7i  August^  1829. 

"My*  Dear  Father, — I  received  your  gratifying 
letter  in  time  to  prevent  uneasiness.  It  was  truly  a 
gratifying  letter,  vividly  displaying  the  workings  and 
resolutions  of  a  Christian  mind,  as  well  as  the  feelings 
of  a  tender  parent.  Who  sent  us  all  our  blessings  ? 
God.  And  shall  we  return  His  kindness  with  base 
ingratitude  ?  shall  we  become  more  obdurate  the  more 
He  showers  upon  us  of  His  loving-kindness  ?  Yes,  we 
may,  but  woe  unto  us  if  we  shall;  we  may,  but  heaven 
will  frown  upon  us  if  we  do,  and  hell  will  exult  with 
joy.  Come,  then,  let  us  acknowledge  the  goodness  of 
God.  Let  us  pour  out  our  souls  in  praise  and  thanks- 
giving at  a  throne  of  grace.  Is  He  not  a  kind  God, 
and  shall  we  be  unmindful  ?  Is  He  not  a  gracious 
forgiving  God,  and  shall  we  be  rebellious  ?  Is  He  not 
a  God  of  love,  and  shall  we  therefore  hate  Him  and 
His  children  ?  Ah  !  What  do  I  say  ?  Forget,  rebel 
against,  and  hate  the  great  Creator,  Preserver,  Re- 
deemer, and  Judge  !  Oh,  my  soul,  shrink  from  the 
impious  thought;  and  praise  God  that  thou  art  not 
at  this  moment  an  outcast  in  the  place  of  perdition. 

"  This,  my  dear  father,  I  believe  to  be  the  language 
of  your  heart,  when  you  have  finally  resolved  to  deliver 
mo  up  a  free-will  offering  to  the  Lord.  In  so  delivering 
me  do  reckon  it  to  be  a  duty  and  a  privilege.  Instead 
of  my  being  willing  in  this  service,  and  preserved  from 
the  evil  that  is  in  the  world,  might  I  not,  at  this 
moment,  be  a  rake,  and  given  up  to  all  manner  of  vice, 
and  doomed  to  expiate  my  crime  against  an  outraged 


JEt.  2^.  TENDEU    FAREWELLS.  57 

community  on  the  scaffold  ?  And  would  not  your 
heart  be  broken  and  your  grey  liairs  brought  down 
•with  sorrow  to  the  grave,  if  this  were  my  unhappy 
destiny  ?  Yes,  ray  dear  father,  sure  I  am  that,  in  this 
case,  anguish  inexpressible  would  be  your  anguish, 
such  as  alone  a  parent  can  feel.  Who  then  has  so 
highly  favoured  you  and  me  as  to  save  us  the  anguish 
and  shame  of  such  a  death  ?  God  alone,  in  the  riches 
of  His  restraining  grace  and  boundless  compassion. 
And  if,  on  the  other  hand,  God,  with  a  love  that  is 
unfathomable  as  the  abyss  of  His  own  infinity,  has 
blessed  me  undeservedly,  blessed  me  with  the  comforts 
of  this  life,  infused  into  my  soul  a  portion  of  His 
grace,  taught  me  to  look  forward  to  a  glorious 
heaven  as  my  home ;  nay  more,  made  my  venerable 
parent  the  Church  of  Scotland  call  me,  one  of  the 
unworthiest  of  her  sons,  to  fight  the  battles  of  the 
Lord  in  the  land  of  the  enemy,  and  exhibit  feats  of 
divine  heroism,  and  live  the  life  and  die  the  death  of 
a  special  ambassador  of  the  Lord  to  the  heathen,  oh ! 
should  not  I  rejoice,  should  not  y^  u  rejoice  and  fall 
down  on  your  knees,  and  bless  and  praise  and  magnify 
the  holy  name  of  God,  for  having  so  richly  favoured, 
so  highly  honoured  a  feeble,  undeserving  son  of  yours  ? 
Or  will  you  be  a  loser  by  so  giving  me  up  to  the  Lord, 
and  so  praising  Him  for  His  goodness  in  having  called 
me  to  so  mighty  a  work?  No,  God  will  bless  you 
with  the  blessing  of  Abraham,-  will  enrich  you  with 
His  faith  and  reward,  and  will  reward  you  a  thousand- 
fold for  your  willing  resignation  and  cheerful  readiness 
in  obeying  God's  command.  The  Lord  bless  you,  and 
my  dear  mother,  and  all  the  people  of  God  at  Moulin. 
Adieu  !     Your  dear  and  affectionate  son, 

"Alexander  Doff.'* 
The  student  who  seems  to  have  taken  the  place  of 


58  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1829. 

Urquliarfc  In  liis  affections  was  one  of  bis  own  age, 
but  several  years  junior  to  him  in  college.  To  David 
Ewart,  also  a  Perthsliire  man  but  born  at  Alytli,  lie 
thus  describes  his  preparation  in  Edinburgli  for  tho 
work  which  he  had  undertaken.  The  glowing  lan- 
guage and  utter  self-surrender  doubtless  influenced  his 
friend  to  follow  him  after  some  years  to  Calcutta  : — 

"  EoiNnuRGU,  8th  J'lihj,  1829. 

"My  Dear  Mr.  Ewart, — In  rede,  ption  of  a  pledge 
given  at  our  last  parting  I  now  write  to  you.  At 
present  my  time  is  chiefly  occupied  in  inspecting  the 
best  conducted  schools  in  this  city,  in  writing  dis- 
courses for  my  ordination-trials,  etc.,  and  in  studying 
the  religion  and  character  of  the  Hindoos,  so  far  as 
a  knowledge  of  these  can  be  acquired  from  books  and 
the  information  of  gentlemen  who  have  been  in  India ; 
my  object  being,  under  the  divine  blessing,  to  employ 
every  means  that  may  conduce  to  render  myself  more 
fully  qualified  for  satisfactorily  fulfilling  tho  arduous 
duties  which  I  have  undertaken  to  discharge.  To 
imbue  these  dead  exercises  with  the  living  energy  of 
heaven,  and  convert  them  into  usefulness  in  the  service 
of  heaven,  I  endeavour  feebly  and  imperfectly,  yet, 
I  trust,  earnestly  and  incessantly,  to  pour  out  my 
soul  in  prayer  and  supplication  to  the  Father  of  spirits, 
that  He  may  cause  His  richest  blessings  to  descend 
upon  my  feeble  efforts.  I  have  endeavoured  to  exam.- 
ine  into  the  state  of  my  soul,  to  prove  the  sincerity  of 
my  motives  in  my  self-dedication  to  the  cause  of  Christ. 
I  have  endeavoured  not  only  to  subdue,  but  absolutely 
to  crucify  and  annihilate,  that  fair  and  plausible  and 
insinuating  but  withal  hell-enkindled  and  soul-destroy- 
ing thing,  self :  I  have  endeavoured  to  count  the  cost 
and  view  it   in  its  most  fearful  magnitude :    I  havo 


JFA.  23.  FIRST    LETTER   TO    DAVID   EWART.  59 

endeavoured  to  ascend  tlio  mountain  of  tlio  Lord,  to 
enter  His  holy  temple  and  presence,  to  lay  liold  of  tho 
balances  of  the  sanctuary.     In  the  one  side  I  liave 
placed  the  clinging  ties  and  lingering  claims  of  tlio 
land  of  my  fatliers,  the  fond  caresses  of  friends  and 
acquaintances  dear  as  life,  the  refined  enjoyments  of 
civilized   society,  the  delights   arising  from  favourite 
studies,  and  the  exhilarating  benefits  of  a  kindly  cli- 
mate :  in  the  other,  the  unredeemed  chcerlcssness  of  a 
foreign  land,  the  scorn  and  contempt  and  ridicule  of 
the  strangers  for  whose  welfare  I  labour,  the  grating 
inconveniences   of  a  rude  untutored  community,  tho 
engagements  in  studies  and  pursuits  inherently  unwel- 
come  to   the   mind,   and   tho    enervating,  destructive 
influences  of  an  unwholesome   atmosphere;    dangers, 
difficulties,  disappointments,  yea,  the  great  probability 
of  a  sudden,  premature  death  : — these  have  I,  in  depen- 
dence upon  divine  grace,  endeavoured  to  weigh  in  tho 
balances.     Tho  former  side,  notwithstanding  its  appci' 
rent  weight,  has  been  found  wanting ;  the  latter  God 
has  been  graciously  pleased,  to  cause  uniformly  to  pro- 
ponderate.     And  in  the  glow  of  a  feeling  Avhich  is  not 
natural  to  flesh  and  blood,  and  which,  from  its  per- 
manence, cannot  bo  the  offspring  of  a  heated  imagina- 
tion, I  have  been  enabled  to  exclaim  :  '  May  the  former 
considerations  not   only  be  weakened,  but  be  utterly 
swept  out  of  existence.    0  Lord,  I  feel  their  littleness, 
their  total  insignificancy,  and,  for  the  sake  of  promoting 
Thy  glory  among  the  heatlien,  I  cordially,  cheerfully 
embrace    the   latter  :    yea,   if  such  were  Thy  will,  I 
am  ready  to  go  to  the  parched  desert  or  the  howling 
wilderness,  to  live  on  its  bitter  herbs  and  at  the  mercy 
of  its  savage  inhabitants.     Lord,  strengthen  the  weak- 
ness of  my  faith  that  I  may  bo  powerful  in  accom- 
plishing Thy  will.'     .     .     Your  affectionate  friend, 

^*  Alexander  Duff." 


60  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF,  1829. 

Next  to  liis  own  people,  none  took  so  keen  an  in- 
terest in  the  whole  career  of  the  young  missionary  as  a 
patriarchal  couple  at  Blairgowrie,  who,  being  childless, 
had  long  devoted  themselves  exclusively^  to  work  for 
Christ.     Patrick  Lawson  and  his  wife  became  young 
again  when  they  had  students  around  them ;  and  few 
were  so  welcome  as  Alexander  Duff,  who  had  been  in 
the  habit  of  visiting  them  annually,  on  the  rising  of  the 
college,  attracted  chiefly  by  their  rich  and  racy  l)iblical 
talk.     In  his  last  interview,  after  his  appointment  by 
the  General  Assembly,  ho  was  asked  abruptly  whether 
he  intended  to  marry.     He  replied  that  he  had  been 
too  close  a  student  to  think  of  such  matters,  and  had 
not,  up  to  that  time,  met  one  whom  he  could  conscien- 
tiously regard  as  a  suitable  helpmeet  in  so  arduous  an 
enterprise.     "  Well,"  said  the  old  gentleman,  stead- 
fastly regarding  him,  "  I  do  not  approve  of  young  men 
fresh  from  college  taking  wives  to  themselves  when 
newly  married  to  their  church,  before  they  can  pos- 
sibly know  the  requirements  of  their  work.     But  your 
case  is  wholly  different.     You  go  to  a  distant  region 
of  heathenism,    where   you    will  find  little  sympathy 
among    your   countrymen,    and    will   need    the    com- 
panionship of  one  like-minded  to  whom  you  may  un- 
bosom yourself.     My  advice  to  you  is,  be  quietly  on 
the  look-out ;  and  if,  in  God's  providence,  you  make 
the  acquaintance  of  one  of  the  daughters  of  Zion, 
traversing,  like  yourself,  the  wilderness  of  this  world, 
her  face  set  thitherward,  get  into   friendly  converse 
with  her.     If  you  find  that  in  mind,  in  heart,  in  tem- 
per and  disposition  you  congenialize,  and  if  God  puts 
it  into  her  heart  to  be  willing  to  forsake  father  and 
mother  and  cast  in  her  lot  with  you,  regard  it  as  a 
token  from  the  God  of  providence  that  you  should  use 
the   proper  means  to  secure  her   Christian  society." 
Thus  he  went  on,  in  the  allegorical  style  of  Bunyan, 


JEt.  23.  MAKllIAGE.  61 

and  with  a  deep  feeling  wliicli  speedily  won  Mr.  Duff's 
assent. 

Just  before  Dr.  Chalmers  ordained  the  missionary, 
Dr.  Inglis  married  him  to  Anne  Scott  Drysdale,  of 
Edinburgh.  It  was,  and  was  more  than  once  pronounced 
by  him,  when  left  the  survivor  but  not  solitary,  a  happy 
consummation.  Never  had  even  missionary  a  moro 
devoted  wife.  Sinking  herself  in  her  husband  from 
the  very  first,  she  gave  him  a  new  strength,  and  left 
the  whole  fulness  of  his  nature  and  his  time  free  for 
the  one  work  of  his  life.  She  worthily  takes  her  place 
among  those  noble  women,  in  many  lands  of  the  East, 
who  have  supplied  the  domestic  order,  the  family  joy, 
the  wedded  strength  needed  to  nerve  the  pioneers  of 
missions  for  the  unceasing  conflict  that  ends  in 
victory. 

It  was  on  the  19th  September,  1829,  that  the  mis- 
sionary and  his  wife  left  Leith  for  London,  where  they 
became  the  guests  of  Alderman  and  Mrs.  Pirie,  and 
where  Mr.,  afterwards  Sir  John  Pirie,  secured  a 
passage  and  fitted  up  a  cabin  for  them  in  the  Ladij 
Holland  East  Indiaman.  Dr.  Inglis  had  formally 
npplied  to  the  Court  of  Directors  for  that  permission 
for  Mr.  Duff  and  his  wife  to  sail  to  India  as  "inter- 
lopers," not  in  the  covenanted  civil,  military  and  naval 
service  of  the  East  India  Company,  which  passport 
Parliament  was  soon  to  declare  unnecessary  by  the 
liberal  charter  of  1833.  He  was.  Dr.  Inglis  reported 
to  the  Assembly  of  1830,  "  supplied  with  letters  of 
introduction  and  recommendation  to  the  Governor- 
General,  to  our  countryman  the  Earl  of  Dalhousie, 
to  other  men  of  influence  at  the  seat  of  Government 
at  Calcutta,  and  to  some  of  our  private  friends."  The 
Earl,  who  was  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Indian 
armies,  was  the  father  of  the  great  Marquis,  and  tho 
Governor-General  was  Lord  William  Bentinck.     This 


6a  LIFE   OF  DR.    DUFF.  1829. 

was  tlio  letter  to  the  Calcutta  cliaplaln.  Dr.  Bryco 
and  his  wife  in  due  time  welcomed  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Duff 
with  the  proverbial  kindliness  of  Anglo-Indians. 

"Edinburqii,  \Gth  Snptnmhcr,  1829. 

"My  Dear  Sir, — This  letter  will  bo  delivered  to  you  by  Mr. 
Alexander  Duff,  who  is,  at  length,  sent  out  as  Head  Master  of 
the  General  Assembly's  proposed  Institution  in  India.  I  need 
not  say  much  for  explaining  to  you  tlio  causes  of  delay  in  the 
acconiplishmcnt  of  an  object  which  I  have  had  much  at  heart. 
Want  of  money  will  readily  occur  to  you  j  and  it  was  in  fact 
tho  only  impediment.  But  we  now  hope  that  wo  may  venture 
to  send  out  one  assistant  to  Mr.  Duff,  who  may  reach  him 
pretty  nearly  as  soon  as  he  shnll  have  made  all  tho  requisite 
preparations  for  tho  work  assigned  to  him. 

"I  have  great  confidence  in  Mr.  Duff  for  an  able  and  faith- 
ful and  prudent  discharge  of  all  the  duty  which  lie  has  under- 
taken. At  tho  College  of  St.  Andrews,  where  lie  was  bred, 
he  stood  very  high  in  respect  of  attainments — literary  and 
scientific  as  well  as  theological;  he  carried  off  many  of  tho 
first  prizes  in  every  department.  At  the  samo  time  his  whole 
heart  seems  to  be  committed  in  the  work  which  he  has  under- 
taken ;  and  we  have  had  the  strongest  attestations  of  the  pru- 
dence and  discretion  of  his  general  conduct. 

"  As  to  his  side  in  tho  Church  I  have  made  no  inquiry. 
It  was  obvious  from  tho  beginning  that  this  was  not  a  point  to 
bo  insisted  on.  But  he  has  been  recommended  to  mo  by  men 
of  both  sides  of  the  Church  in  language  equally  strong.  I 
have  no  doubt  of  his  experiencing  from  you  all  the  kindness 
which  my  heart  can  desire ;  and  I  am  confident  that  my  friend 
Mrs.  Bryce  will  have  an  equal  disposition  to  show  kindness  to 
Mrs.  Duff.  With  her  I  am  littlo  acquainted;  but  it  would 
give  me  much  pleasure  to  learn  that  sho  proves  an  agreeable 
accompaniment  of  our  mission  to  India. 

**  Many  thanks  to  you  for  whai  you  did  in  procuring  contri- 
butions to  our  fund.  I  received  notice  from  Dr.  Meiklejohn 
and  Mr.  Peterkin  that  they  amount  to  about  £1,000,  lying  in 
a  bank  at  Calcutta,  and  bearing  interest  at  the  order  of  the 
General  Assembly.  I  received  a  similar  intimation  that  3,350 
rupees  were  lying  for  us  at  Bombay.     An  order  will  bo  sent 


^t.  23.  T)R.    INGLIS   TO   DR.    CUYCE.  63 

through  tho  house  of  Coutts  &  Co.,  in  London,  for  the  pay- 
ment of  botli  tho  Calcutta  and  tho  Bombay  money  to  their 
correspondent  in  Calcutta,  who  will  bo  empowered  to  dispose 
of  it,  for  behoof  of  the  Assembly's  Committee,  in  tho  payment 
of  salaries,  etc.,  as  circumstances  shall  require. 

"  I  must  refer  you  to  Mr.  Duff  for  an  explanation  of  all  our 
plan,  which  has  been  arranged  in  tho  course  of  consultation 
with  your  excellent  friend,  Dr.  Macwhirter.  In  truth,  tho 
want  of  money  seems  to  be  the  only  thing  that  stands  in  tho 
way  of  a  fair  prospect  of  great  success.  This  want  I  shall  do 
everything  in  my  power  to  supply  ;  and  I  am  very  hopeful 
that  you  will  now  find  it  in  your  power  to  assist  mo  farther 
with  your  friends  in  India.  In  this  case  wo  should  be  able 
very  soon  to  completo  what  has  been  proposed  by  having,  be- 
sides tho  head-master,  two  assistant-teachers  from  Europe, 
and  as  many  native  teachers  as  they  can  conveuieutly  superin- 
tend. I  shall  now  bo  very  anxious  to  hear  from  you  about 
what  is  doing  after  Mr.  Duff's  arrival.  Tho  precise  site  of 
our  Institution  will  bo  an  important  object  to  fix.  All  that  wo 
have  determined  hero  is  that  it  should  bo  in  tho  neighbourhood 
of  Calcutta." 

The  missionary's  last  letter  from  London  was 
addressed  to  Dr.  Chalmers  : 

''6th  October,  1829. 

"  Dear  Doctor, — I  cannot  make  a  sufficient  acknow- 
ledgment to  you  for  your  kindness  in  forwarding  to 
me  a  copy  of  your  charge.  No  boon  could  be  to  me 
so  invaluable,  no  address  equally  pregnant  with  sound 
advice  and  eloquent  admonition.  Major  Carnac,  to 
whom  you  so  kindly  introduced  me,  I  found  truly 
agreeable  and  ready  to  promote  my  views.  By  Mr. 
Orme  I  was  last  week  introduced  to  a  full  meeting  of 
the  directors  of  the  London  Missionary  Si5ciety,  who 
received  mo  with  the  most  marked  attention ;  and  in 
private  I  have  reaped  much  benefit  from  the  conversa- 
tions of  Mr.  Townly,  Dr.  Henderson,  and  Mr.  Hands. 


64  LIFK    OV   D\L    DUFF.  1829. 

I  have  attciulcd  Mr.  Forbes  for  tlio  acquisition  of 
oriental  languages.  My  kindest  respects  to  Mrs. 
Chalmers  and  family,  and  Miss  Edio.  This  evening 
wc  aot  off  for  Portsmouth." 


CHAPTER  III. 

1830. 

THE  TWO  SmrWREGKS. 

"In  Perils  of  Waters." — The  Lady  Holland  and  lier  Pnsscn<:;er8 
— Lieutenant-  J[.  Af.  Diirand. — Madeira. — Tho  Unfortunate  Ball. 
— Captain  Marryat. — Georj^o  Canin'u;»''.s  KIdcst  8on. — Pirates. — 
Capo  Vcrd  Islands. — OIF  Dassen  I.sland. — Tlio  First  Shipwreck. 
— Anticipations  of  the  Day  of  Judgment. — Resignation  and 
Prayer. — Saved  at  Last. — Tho  Biblo  and  Psalter  cast  up  by 
the  Sea. — Fervent  Thanksgiving  of  All. — Lesson  from  tho  Lost 
Library.—  Capo  Town. — Letter  to  Dr.  Chalmers. — Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Duff  sail  in  tlio  Muira  for  Calcutta. — Opposing  Gaics. — At  the 
Sandheads. — Cyclone  off  Saugar  Island. — The  Second  Shipwreck. 
— A  Night  and  Day  of  Storm. — Tho  Missionary  and  his  ^Vifo 
thrown  on  the  Shore  of  India. — A  Day  and  Night  in  a  Temple. 
— Welcomed  at  Calcutta. — Adam  and  Lacroix. — Lord  and  Lady 
William  Bentinck. — Superstition  of  tho  Natives  forecasts  Duff's 
Future. 

The  vision  of  judgment  seen  by  the  child  who  had 
been  feeding  his  fancy  on  the  Gaehc  rhapsodies  of 
Dugald  Buchanan;  the  divine  call  to  the  boy  as  ho 
lay  dreaming  among  the  blae-berries  on  the  stream- 
let's bank ;  the  deliverance  of  the  youth  by  the  flare 
of  a  torch  when  he  and  his  companion  were  falling 
into  the  sleep  of  death,  lost  amid  the  snowdrifts 
of  the  Grampians — these  foreshadowings  were  not 
to  cease  until  the  missionary's  preparation  for  his 
work  was  completed.  He  had  followed  the  monition 
of  all  three,  not  blindly,  but  as  explained  by  John 
Urquhart's  death-consecrated  appeal,  by  Dr.  Haldane's 
apparently  premature  invitation,  by  Dr.  Ferrie's  ap- 
propriate demand   that  he  should    offer    himself  for 


66  LIFE    OF    DU.    DUFF.  1829. 

Calcutta,  by  Dr.  Inglis's  approval,  by  tlio  General 
Assembly's  appointment ;  and,  finally,  by  ordination 
at  the  hands  of  the  Presbytery,  amid  the  crowd  that 
filled  St.  George's,  Edinburgh,  and  after  the  inspirit- 
ing eloquence  of  Dr.  Chalmers.  Alexander  Duff  and 
his  wife  were  still  to  undergo  the  experience  of  tlie 
greatest  of  all  missionaries  who  wrote,  *'  Thrice  I 
suffered  shipwreck,  a  night  and  a  day  have  I  been  in 
the  deep,  in  journeyings  often,  in  perils  of  waters." 

The  East  India  Company's  ship  Lady  Holland, 
having  filled  up  in  the  Thames  with  a  cargo  valued 
at  £48,000,  entered  the  Channel,  shipped  her  passen- 
gers at  Portsmouth,  became  windbound  for  a  week  at 
Spiihcad,  and  finally  set  sail  from  Ryde  on  the  14th 
October,  1829.  Plunging  heavily  into  the  storm  out- 
side the  Isle  of  Wight,  the  ship  made  for  Falmouth. 
When  the  gale  had  abated  she  passed  close  to  a 
derelict  vessel  carrying  w^ood  and  swept  desolate  by 
the  waves.  Not  a  trace  of  the  crew  could  be  found. 
The  sight  affected  the  Ladij  IlollaiuVs  passengers 
and  crew,  filling  not  a  few  Avith  ominous  apprehen- 
sions as  to  the  issues  of  a  voyage  thus  begun.  But 
the  dreaded  Bay  of  Biscay  proved  to  be  unusually 
friendly,  although  contrary  winds  did  not  allow  the 
ship  to  reach  the  roads  of  Funchal  till  the  7th  of 
November.  By  that  time  the  twenty-two  passengers 
had  taken  stock  of  each  other.  The  great  man  on  board 
■was  no  higher  than  a  judge  in  the  Madras  civil  service ; 
but  it  was  a  fortunate  circumstance  that  Mr.  Lascelles 
and  his  party  of  seven  proved  to  be  "  decidedly  pious," 
as  described  by  Mr.  Duff  in  a  letter  to  Principal 
Haldane.  An  eighth,  and  next  to  Duff  himself  the 
most  remarkable  man  on  board,  was  Henry  Marion 
Durand,  the  young  lieutenant  of  Engineers  who  was 
to  come  second  only  to  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  on  the 
brilliant  roll  of  the  Company's  soldier-statesmen.     lie 


JEt.  23.        LIEUTENANT    DDRAND.    CAPTAIN   MARRYAT.  67 

mado  up  a  gatlieriug  of  at  least  ten  who  attcndcil 
daily  worship.* 

The  captain,  as  usual,  had  intended  to  remain 
a  week  at  Madeira,  to  take  in  a  cargo  of  wine 
that  it  might  make  the  voyage  to  India  to  bo 
mellowed  for  the  English  market.  Anticipating  tliis 
Alderman  Pirio  had  provided  for  the  hospitable 
reception  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Duff  by  his  agent,  Mr. 
Stoddart,  who  was  one  of  the  principal  merchants  and 
afterwards  British  Consul.  As  there  were  at  tho 
time  three  British  frigates  in  the  roads,  they  found 
their  fellow-guest  to  be  the  famous  novelist,  Captain 
Marryat,  who  was  in  command  of  one.  The  week  had 
nearly  passed;  the  agent  of  tho  ship  gave  the  usual 
ball  to  the  captain  and  passengers  on  the  night  before 
her  announced  departure,  and  all  were  present  at  the 
dance  save  the  Duffs  and  Lieutenant  Durand.  After 
midnight  westerly  gales  set  in  with  violence  and  drove 
tho  ships  in  the  Bay  out  to  sea.  Three  of  them 
missed  stays,  were  driven  ashore  and  dashed  to  pieces, 
and  not  a  li ''  was  saved.  The  captains  of  the  frigates 
and  other  vessels,  being  on  shore  at  the  ball,  were  in 
a  very  sorry  plight.  Day  after  day  there  was  a  suc- 
cession of  gales,  so  that  nothing  was  heard  of  any 
one  of  the  vessels  for  upwards  of  three  weeks. 
We  may  imagine  the  position  of  those  passengers 
who  had  gone  ashore  in  their  ball-dress  with  no 
change  of  garments.  Despairip'-'^  of  tho  vessel  some 
of  them  began  to  negotiate  wi  i  a  Portuguese  ship 
about  to  proceed  to  Lisbon,  that  tucy  might  thence  go 
to  London  and  take  ouu  a  new  passage. 

Being  thus  unexpectedly  detained  upwards  of  three 


*  Tlio  life  of  Sir  Henry  Duraiul,  tho  noblest  member  of  tlio  dacal 
house  of  Northauibcrlaud,  is  beiug  wriLton  by  his  second  son,  who 
is  of  the  Bengal  "-vil  scrvioo. 


68  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1829. 

"weeks  beyond  the  allotted  time,  the  passengers  in  the 
different  parties  visited  the  most  interesting  sights  of 
the  island,  amongst  others  the  Curral,  in  the  centre, 
which  is  in  reality  the  gigantic  crater  of  a  volcano 
rising  to  the  height  of  six  thousand  feet.  Approached 
by  a  difficult  zigzag  path  along  many  precipices  which 
look  down  upon  a  tremendous  chasm,  the  Curral  was 
not  seen  till  they  actually  reached  it.  At  the  first 
sight  of  its  vast  dimensions,  in  breadth  as  well  as  height 
and  depth,  all  were  struck  dumb  by  a  sensation  of  the 
sublime.  The  appearance  of  the  place  suggested  to 
Mr.  Duff  the  well-known  lines  of  Cowper, — 

"  Higher  than  the  heights  above. 
Deeper  than  the  depths  beneath. 
Free  and  faithful,  strong  as  death," 

which  he  could  not  help  repeating  aloud.  During 
his  stay  he  also  inspected  some  conventual  and  mon- 
astic institutions,  making  inquiries  into  the  practical 
workinof  of  both.  At  that  time  Don  MiLmel  had 
usurped  the  throne  of  Portugal,  and  had  seized  the 
Portuguese  fleet,  which  ho  sent  to  Madeira  to  capture 
the  island,  to  expel  the  Constitutionalists,  and  to  pro- 
claim his  own  sovereignty  over  it.  Such  was  the 
ignorance  of  the  inhabitants,  that  the  priests  succeeded 
in  making  them  believe  that  Miguel  was  the  incarna- 
tion of  the  archangel  Michael;  and  their  professed 
belief  or  non-belief  in  this  impudent  dogma  was  con- 
stituted into  a  test  to  distincruish  between  the  Miofucl- 
ites  and  the  Constitutionalists. 

A  little  before  this  time  the  eldest  surviving:  son 
of  the  great  George  Canning  had  been  there  in  com- 
mand of  an  English  frigate.  Animated  by  the  liberal 
principles  of  his  father,  he  made  it  to  be  understood 
that,  though  he  could  not  officially  interfere,  if  any  of 
the  persecuted  Constitutionalists  chose  to  seek  refuge 


ALL  23.  DROWNING   OF   LOUD  CANMIMG's    BUOTIIEB.  69 

on  board  liis  sliip  he  would  receive  them.  In  time  it 
was  known  to  the  Portuguese  authorities  that  he  had 
upwards  of  three  hundred  of  these  on  board,  and  the 
Governor  of  the  island  and  the  Admiral  of  the  Portu- 
guese sent  him  a  message  to  the  effect  that  if  he  did 
not  deliver  up  the  refugees,  whom  they  reckoned 
traitors,  they  would  blow  his  frigate  in  pieces.  This 
they  could  have  done,  but  young  Canning,  witli  the 
spirit  of  the  British  seaman,  always  repUed,  "No, 
never:  I  will  deliver  up  not  one  of  them,  and  you 
may  blow  my  ship  in  pieces  if  you  like,  but  that  will 
only  precipitate  your  own  doom,  as  it  would  send 
forth  the  English  Navy  to  put  an  end  to  you  utterly." 
In  point  of  fact  they  did  not  meddle  with  him.  A 
good  way  up  the  hill  a  retired  merchant  of  the  name 
of  Gordon  resided  in  a  house  beautifully  situated. 
He  was  a  very  humane  man.  He  had  got  himself 
appointed  conservator  of  animals,  so  that  he  was 
constantly  on  the  look-out  for  cases  of  cruelty  to  be 
punished.  It  was  a  real  instance  of  benevolence  of 
natural  instinct.  He  was  also  very  hospitable.  One 
day  Captain  Canning  went  up  the  hill  to  the  house, 
in  front  of  which  was  a  tank  of  fresh  water.  Being 
greatly  heated  lie  threw  off  his  clothes,  plunged  into 
the  tank,  was  seized  with  cramp,  and  never  came  out 
alive.  Thus  perished  one  whose  younger  brother  be- 
came the  first  Viceroy  of  India.*  Among  the  Consti- 
tutionalists tliere  was  throughout  the  island  universal 
lamentation. 

Mr.  Duff  held  Sabbath   services  in  the  had  of  one 
the    boarding-houses,   which    were   attended  by  most 


*  Shall  we  never  sec  a  memoir  of  Charles  John  Earl  Canning,  K.tjr , 
and  his  more  noble  vvit'e  r  Their  name  seems  likely  to  perish  most 
uudt'servedly,  absorbed  in  that  of  the  De-Burghs  or  Burkes,  of  whom 
is  their  nephew,  the  Marquis  of  Clanriearde. 


70  LIFE   0¥   DR.    DUFF.  1830. 

of  tlio  English  pcoplo  in  Fiinclial ;  and  there  was  no 
hearer  more  attentive  than  Captain  Marryat,  who  used 
to  boast  that  one  of  his  ancestors  was  a  martyr  to  the 
Christian  faith.  After  three  weeks  one  and  another  of 
tlie  missing  ships  began  to  return,  and  on  the  3rd 
December  the  Ladi/  Holland  set  sail  in  company  with 
one  of  the  British  frigates  which  had  been  ordered 
to  the  equatorial  regions  to  look  after  pirates.  This 
necessitated  a  detour  to  the  port  of  the  principal 
of  the  Cape  Verd  islands,  where  the  captain  of  the 
frigate  had  to  consult  the  British  Consul,  and  learn 
from  him  all  that  was  known  about  the  proceedings 
of  the  pirates.  There  the  ship  was  again  detained 
a  week.  At  that  time  the  islands,  instead  of  realizing; 
what  their  name  implies,  were  suffering  from  long- 
continued  drought,  so  that  everything  on  the  surface 
was  literally  burned  up. 

One  morning,  within  a  few  hundred  yards  of  the 
vessel  there  passea,  scudding  before  the  wind,  one 
of  the  famous  pirate  ships  with  at  least  fifty  men 
on  deck,  and  the  British  frigate  in  full  pursuit. 
The  Lady  Holland,  thus  saved  from  what  otherwise 
would  have  been  destruction  to  passengers  and  ves- 
sel, rapidly  proceeded  on  her  voyage,  leaving  the 
frigate  to  deal  with  the  pirate.  After  having  been 
driven  by  the  south-east  trade-wind  very  near  to  the 
coast  of  Buenos  Ayres,  she  at  last,  early  in  February, 
ai)proachcd  the  coast  of  South  Africa,  for  the  ca[)taiii 
intended  to  call  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  For 
a  whole  week  the  weather  had  been  cloudy  and  bois- 
terous, so  that  no  accurate  observation  could  be  ob- 
tained as  to  the  position  of  the  ship ;  still,  the  captain 
knew  that  he  was  within  no  great  distance  of  the 
coast.  Three  times,  by  contrary  winds,  he  was  driven 
considerably  to  the  south  of  Table  Bay,  and  returned 
with  the  view  of  going  into  it. 


JEt.  24.  THE   FIRST    SillPWllECK.  7 1 

From  the  Cape  coast  tlicrc  shoots  out  into  the  sea,  for 
forty  or  fifty  miles,  a  sandbank  on  wliicli  soundings  may 
be  liad,  but  along  wliicli  a  tremendous  current  sweeps 
round  from   the  Cape.     By   soundings,  on   Saturday 
evening,  loth  February,  the  captain  knew  that  ho  had 
entered  on  this  bank.     His   intention,  therefore,  was 
to  avoid  risks  by  turning  his  vessel  back  to  sea  about 
eight  o'clock.     But   having  then  sounded,  his  conclu- 
sion was  that  he  might   safely  go  on  for  other  two 
hours,  and  his  fixed  determination  was  by  ten  o'clock 
to  turn  back  or  heave  to  and  stay  till  morning.     But 
as  four  bells   announced  ten  o'clock,  and  he  rose  to 
give  the  order  to  turn  the  vessel  back,  she  bumped 
with  alarming  violence  upon  rocks.     The  concussion 
was  tremendous,  and  from  the   first  moment  her  case 
seemed   hopeless.     It  was  not   upon  a  precipice,  but 
on  reefs  of  rock  over  which  the    waves   and  billows 
dashed   furiously,    so    that   at    once    her    back    was 
broken  and  the  fore  part  sank  down  between  the  reefs. 
As  in  all  East  Indiamen  in  those  days  lights   were 
put  out  at  ten,  almost  all  the  passengers  had  retired 
to  their  berths.     The  vio^  ..x>  collision,  as  it  seemed, 
at   once   roused   them   up,    and   they    rushed  to  the 
cuddy,  wrapped  up  in  blankets,  sheets,  or  whatever 
they  could  lay  hold  of.     Occupying  one  of  the  back- 
most poop   cabins,  Mr.  DufF  was  half  undressed  when 
the  shock    took  place.       Ho  ran  out  into  the  cuddy, 
crossed  the  cabin,  met  the    captain  on  the  deck,  and 
heard  him  exclaim  in  agony,  "  Oh,  she's  gone,  she's 


gone  I 


I  " 


Seeing  that  the  condition  of  the  vessel  was  hopeless, 
the  command  was  promptly  given  to  cut  down  the  masts 
in  order  to  relieve  the  pressure  of  the  wind  on  the  sails, 
and  then,  in  case  there  might  be  a  way  of  escape,  to  caulk 
the  seams  of  the  long-boat,  which  was  in  the  centre  of  tho 
vessel,  and  in  which  were  forty  sheep  when  it  left  Eng- 


72  LIFE   OF   Dll.    DUFF.  1830. 

land.  Meanwhile  almost  all  the  passengers  assembled 
in  the  cuddy,  but,  from  the  violence  of  the  motion,  they 
could  neither  sit  nor  stand  without  clinging  to  some  ob- 
ject. At  first  consternation  was  depicted  in  every  coun- 
tenance at  the  suddenness  of  so  terrible  a  catastrophe, 
for  all  had  joyfully  made  their  arrangements  to  go  on 
shore  at  Cape  Town  next  forenoon.  In  one  of  the 
cabins  adjoining  tlie  cuddy  there  was  a  captain  who  was 
heard  crying  out  in  bitter  agony,  "  What  shall  become 
of  me,  I  have  been  such  a  hypocrite!"  The  explan- 
ation of  this  was,  that  he  had  been  married  to  a 
godly  lady,  and  while  she  lived  he  tried  to  pay  at 
least  outward  homage  t»)  the  observances  of  religion, 
but,  after  her  death,  ho  relapsed  into  the  follies  of 
the  world.  Mr.  Duff  was  wont  to  hold  a  religious 
service  every  Lord's-day,  which  all  the  passengers 
attended  except  this  officer,  who,  to  show  his  con- 
tempt used  to  pace  the  poop  deck  over  their  heads. 
One  of  the  ladies,  who  was  a  Christian,  happened  to 
notice  that  another  of  the  passengers,  a  colonel  who 
occupied  one  of  the  poop  cabins,  was  not  among 
the  number  present,  and  her  remark  was,  "  Let 
us  not  allow  him  to  go  down  without  at  least  his 
knowing  it."  Two  or  three  entered  his  cabin  and 
found  him  profoundly  askep.  AVaking  him  up,  they 
dragged  him  into  the  cuddy.  Astonished  he  began 
to  cry  out,  "  Are  you  all  crazed  ? "  and  then  he 
suddenly  broke  out  into  a  bacchanalian  song.  This 
surprised  every  one,  because  it  was  not  known  that  he 
could  sing  at  all.  He  was  naturally  a  most  affable  and 
courteous  man,  who  was  a  general  favourite  with  the 
passengers.  But  it  turned  out  that  he  had  a  habit, 
unknown  to  most  of  them,  of  nightly  taking  a  very 
copious  dranglit  of  brandy,  and  then  retiring  to  bis 
berth.  Having  slept  it  off,  the  next  morning  he  would 
appear  cheerful  as  usual.     The  disaster  having  taken 


A'A.  24.  THE    FIRST    SUirWRECK.  JT, 

place  about  ten  o'clock,  tlicro  liad  not  been  time  for 
him  to  recover  from  the  effects  of  the  draught. 

A  few  of  the  passengers  were  God-fearing  people, 
and  they  were  calmly  resigned  to  what  seemed  to 
be  their  inevitable  fate.  As  was  often  the  case  in  these 
long  voyages,  several  of  them  were  not  even  on  speak- 
ing terms.  To  introduce  a  mollifying  element,  Mr. 
Duff  was  accustomed  daily  to  have  a  number  of  them  in 
his  cabin,  to  whom  he  read  portions  of  the  history  of 
India  and  other  works.  Now  all,  oppressed  with  the 
conviction  that  they  might  immediately  appear  before 
the  judgment  seat  of  God,  became  suddenly  reconciled, 
shaking  each  other  by  the  hand  and  imploring  forgive- 
ness. Others  thought  of  the  friends  whom  they  had 
left  at  home,  and  gave  varied  utterance  to  their  feel- 
ings. The  whole  scene,  Mr.  Duff  used  to  say  after- 
wards, tended  to  suG^s^est  the  marvellous  revelations 
which  shall  take  place  at  the  Day  of  Judgment.  In 
about  half  an  hour,  when  the  first  convulsive  agonies 
of  feeling  began  to  abate,  ho  suggested  that,  as  all 
might  suddenly  bo  called  together  to  give  their  final 
account,  they  should  join  as  best  they  could  in  prayer 
to  God  for  their  deliverance,  if  it  were  Ilis  holy  will, 
and  if  otherwise  that  they  might  bo  prepared  to  meet 
Him.  All  responded,  clustering  around  him  and  hold- 
ing by  what  objects  they  could,  while  the  missionary 
poured  out  his  soul  in  fervent  sup[)lications. 

While  such  was  the  scene  below,  the  captain  and 
the  sailors  were  eagerly  doing  their  part  on  the  deck. 
All  around  the  wreck  there  was  one  mass  of  white 
foam,  except  immediately  behind.  The  captain  had, 
at  the  very  outset,  ordered  one  of  the  gig  boats 
hanging  over  the  side  of  the  vessel  to  be  launched. 
He  put  three  seamen  into  her,  with  the  order  to 
follow  this  darker  part,  and,  if  possible,  get  round  the 
mass  of  white  foam  to  ascertain   whether  there  was 


74  LIFE    OF    DK.    DUFF.  iSjot 

any  landing  place  available.  For,  at  the  time,  it  was 
not  known  wlieihor  the  vessel  had  struck  on  a  sunken 
reef,  on  an  island,  or  on  the  mainland.  It  wjis  a 
desperate  endeavour.  The  sea  was  running  mountains 
high,  and  it  seemed  impossible  that  a  small  boat  could 
live  in  it.  Three  hours  had  passed  and  the  boat  was 
given  up  as  lost,  when  it  appeared  and  the  seamen 
announced  that,  round  the  mass  of  Avhite  foam,  they 
had.  found  a  small  sandy  bay,  on  which,  if  it  could  be 
reached,  a  landing  would  be  practicable.  This  inten- 
sified the  desire  to  launch  the  long-boat,  but,  sur- 
rounded as  the  wreck  was  by  masts,  spars  and  broken 
bulwarks,  it  seemed  more  than  doubtful  whether  this 
could  be  done.  Every  wave  was  now  rolling  over  the 
main  deck. 

At  last,  watching  their  opportunity,  the  sailors  got 
the  boat  afloat  by  the  help  of  one  of  the  waves. 
When  they  saw  it  fairly  oif  at  a  short  distance  from 
the  wreck,  they  raised  the  shout,  "  There  goes  our 
last  hope,"  meaning,  there  it  is  safe  among  the  floating 
fragments  of  the  wreck.  But  scarcely  had  the  cry 
been  uttered  when  the  rope  snapped,  and  the  boat  was 
seen  like  a  dark  speck  moving  away  into  the  mass  of 
white  foam.  By  this  time  the  moon  gave  a  dim 
flickering  light.  Though  the  last  hope  of  deliver- 
ance thus  seemed  gone,  not  a  word  was  uttered  by 
any  one  of  the  passengers,  who  had  become  so  ex- 
hausted that  their  only  desire  was  for  a  speedy  end. 
To  their  surprise,  however,  the  dark  speck  in  the 
foam,  wdiicli  had  disappeared,  began  to  approach,  and 
a  human  voice  was  heard  from  it  calling  for  a  rope. 
It  turned  out  that  a  wretched  sailor,  who  had  seemed 
to  be  the  worst  man  on  board,  confessed  that  ho 
had  resolved,  if  any  one  were  to  be  saved  he  would. 
Amid  the  uproar  and  darkness  he  had  concealed 
himself  lengthways  in  the  bottom  of  the  boat.     When 


yEl.  24.  THE    OWEAT    DELIVERANCE.  75 

it  approacliGcl  tho  dark  line  of  rock  he  saw  it  might 
bo  dashed  in  pieces,  and  so  he  seized  an  oar  and  held 
it  up  against  the  rock,  thus  turning  the  boat  round 
into  a  small  cove.  There  the  next  wave  threatened 
to  dash  him  to  pieces,  so  witli  the  energy  of  despair 
he  grasped  a  second  oar,  and  succeeded  in  owing 
back  to  tho  wreck. 

The  long-boat  could  not  contain  above  a  third  part 
of  those  on  board  ;  the  question  therefore  was,  who 
should  go  first.  Had  it  been  at  the  outset  there 
might  have  been  a  rush  for  tho  boat,  but  by  this 
time  all  tumultuous  feelings  were  assuaged.  The 
prevalent  feeling  was,  that  all  the  lady  passengers 
should  if  possible  get  on  board.  Then  a  very  strik- 
ing scene  occurred  :  some  of  these  were  married,  some 
unmarried.  The  unmarried  ones  went  to  the  married 
men,  saying,  "  You  go  with  your  wives, — you  are  two, 
we  are  only  one," — because  the  wives  had  said  that 
they  would  not  leave  without  their  husbands.  Event- 
ually all  the  ladies  and  married  men  got  on  board. 
Manned  by  a  few  strong  sailors,  with  the  gig  leading 
the  wav,  tlie  lonof-boat  at  lensfth  reached  the  shallow 
sandy  beach.  The  wind  after  midnight  had  begun 
considerably  to  abate,  and  all  were  landed. 

Soon  after  the  last  boat  arrived  daylight  began  to 
appear.  Before  this  there  was  no  means  of  knowing 
whether  the  place  was  inhabited ;  but  sounds  in  end- 
less variety  were  heard,  amongst  which  all  agreed  that 
they  could  distinguish  the  braying  of  asses.  It  was 
found  that  the  shipwrecked  party  had  reached  an 
island,  of  which  the  only  tenants  were  myriads  of  pen- 
guins who  had  given  forth  these  discordant  noises. 
The  penguin  is  a  bird  in  size  intermediate  between  a 
duck  and  a  goose,  with  short  flappers  which  assist  it 
in  swimming  and  in  running-  quickly  along  the  shore. 
Soon  also  it  was  found  that,  since  at  that  season  the 


76  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1830. 

pongiilns  laid  their  eggs  in  holes  burrowed  in  the 
sandy  surface  of  the  island,  there  were  two  Dutchmen 
on  the  spot  sent  from  Capo  Town  to  collect  the  spoil. 
The  passengers  bargained  with  these  men  for  the  use 
of  their  cooking-pot,  and  then  divided  themselves  into 
companies — one,  to  collect  eggs ;  another,  to  gather 
withered  grass  and  sea-weed  for  the  fire;  and  a  third, 
to  remain  by  the  pot  and  constantly  boil  the  eggs  as 
their  only  food. 

Soon  after  this  a  sailor,  walking  along  the  beach, 
noticed  an  object  cast  ashore.  Going  up  to  it,  he  found 
it  was  a  quarto  copy  of  Bagster's  liible  and  a  Scotch 
Psalm-book,  somewhat  shattered  but  with  Mr.  Duff's 
name  written  distinctly  on  both.  The  precious  volumes 
had  not  been  used  on  the  voyage  out.  Wrapped  in 
chamois  leather  they  had  been  put  with  other  books 
in  a  box,  which  must  have  been  broken  to  pieces.  The 
sailor  who  found  the  volumes  high  and  dry  on  the 
beach  had  been  the  most  attentive  at  the  service  which 
the  missionary  had  held  with  the  crew  every  Sabbath. 
Taking  Bible  and  Psalter  to  the  hovel  where  the  pas- 
sengers sought  shelter,  with  a  glowing  face  he  pre- 
sented them  to  their  owner.  All  were  deeply  affected 
by  what  they  regarded  as  a  message  from  God.  Led 
by  Mr.  Duff  they  kneeled  down,  and  there  he  spread 
out  the  precious  books  on  the  white  bleached  sand. 
What  a  meaning  to  each  had  the  travellers'  Psalm,  the 
107tli  which  he  read,  as  to  all  exiles,  captives  and 
stormtossed  wanderers  since  the  days  when  its  first 
singers  were  gathered  from  all  lands  to  rebuild  Jeru- 
salem !  What  fervent  prayer  and  thanksgiving  followed 
its  words,  as  tne  band  of  shipwrecked  but  delivered  men 
and  women  lifted  their  wearied  faces  to  the  heavens  : 


"  Whoso  is  wise  and  will  observe  these  things, 

Even  thuy  tjliuU  undcrslaud  the  lovingkinduess  of  the  Lord, 


}> 


JEt.  24.  Till-:    LOSS    OF    HIS    Lir.KARY.  77 

For  the  missionary  liimself  tlio  appnrcnfc  miracle 
had  a  very  special  meaning,  wliicli  influenced  his  after- 
life. His  letters,  so  far  as  we  liaveu^iveu  extracts  from 
them,  have  shown  that  when  in  all  the  flusli  of  his 
collei^e  successes  he  anew  devoted  himself  to  God, 
for  what  was  tlien  dreaded  as  a  missionai'y  career, 
he  counted  learnini^  as  nothing  in  com[)arison  of 
winning  Christ  for  himself  and  for  others.  As  to 
some  of  the  greatest  of  the  Fathers  on  their  tui'ii- 
ing  from  Paganism,  Homer,  Yirgil  and  Horace  had 
been  dear  companions,  wliose  lines  lingered  on  the 
tongue  and  rang  in  the  ear  when  their  books  were 
not  in  the  hands,  so  was  it  to  Alexander  Duff.  Ho 
loved  these  less  only  because  he  cared  for  tlie  old  and 
never  to  be  dethroned  queen  of  tlie  sciences  more.  He 
had  but  half  parted  with  their  companionship,  and  ho 
could  never  lose  the  culture  they  gave  him — tlie  sym- 
pathy with  all  literature  by  which  he  was  nmrked  till 
his  last  days  when  ho  read  to  his  grand-children  the 
"  Paradise  Lost,"  which  classical  associations  made 
more  dear  to  him.  So  when  going  forth  to  found  a  col- 
lege,  a  Christian  Institute,  like  Bishop  Berkeley  at  the 
Bermudas,  he  had  taken  with  him  a  library  of  more 
than  eight  hundred  volumes,  representing  "every 
department  of  knowledge."  All  were  swallowed  up  in 
the  shipwreck  save  forty.  And  of  these  forty  the  only 
books  not  reduced  nearly  to  pulp  were  the  Bible,  in 
the  best  edition  of  those  days,  solenndy  presented  to 
him  by  friends  in  St.  Andrews  on  his  ordination ;  and 
the  Psalter  with  which  Moses  and  David,  Asaph  and  tlio 
other  authors  of  the  five  books  of  the  orioinal  Hebrew 
lays,  have  ever  since  fed  the  Church  of  God  and  com- 
forted sinning,  ])onitent  humanity.  AYitli  the  books 
had  gone  all  his  journals,  notes,  memoranda  and 
essays,  dear  to  an  honest  student  as  his  own  flesh. 
The  instinct  which  had  led  all  the  passengers,  even  the 


78  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1830. 

least  devout  of  the  twenty-two,  to  recognise  in  the 
preservation  of  the  Bible  and  Psalter  a  message  from 
God,  became  in  his  case  a  conviction  that  henceforth 
human  learninof  must  bo  to  him  a  means  onlv,  not  in 
itself  an  end.  That  the  word  of  God  abide th  for  ever, 
was  afresh  written  upon  his  soul.  The  man  to  whom 
purely  secular  scholars  in  the  next  generation  bore 
this  testimony  as  tlic  highest  they  could  give,  that  ho 
was  afraid  of  no  truth  but  sanctified  all  truth,  did  not 
cease,  even  then,  his  allegiance  to  learning  in  every 
form  when  of  his  books  and  journals  he  wrote  to  Dr. 
Inglis  :  *  "  They  are  gone,  and,  blessed  be  God,  I  can 
say,  gone  without  a  murmur.  So  perish  all  earthly 
thingfs  :  the  treasure  that  is  laid  up  in  Leaven  alone  is 
unassailable.  God  has  been  to  me  a  God  full  of  mercy, 
and  not  the  least  of  His  mercies  do  I  find  in  cheerful 
resignation." 

The  land  proved  to  be  Dassen  Island,  in  the  Atlantic, 
forty  miles  N.N.W.  of  Cape  Town  and  ten  miles  from 
the  mainland  of  Africa.  From  afar  they  saw  the 
white  mist  which  forms  the  '  table-cloth  '  of  Tablo 
Mountain.  The  shipwrecked  people  planned  to  cross 
the  strait  and  find  their  way  on  foot  to  the  town,  but 
the  Dutchmen's  skiff  was  too  small  to  do  the  work  of 
ferrying  in  less  than  a  mouth.  So  the  Irish  surgeon  of 
the  ship  set  out  alone,  and  in  four  days  a  brig  of  war 
rescued  them,  sent  by  the  humane  Governor,  Sir  Lowric 
Cole,  although  it  was  just  weighing  anchor  for  other 
duty  at  Port  Elizabeth.  The  surgeon  had  sought  an 
immediate  interview  with  his  Excellency,  who  had  just 
finished  his  despatches.  The  gallant  soldier,  who  had 
been  one  of  Wellington's  generals  in  the  Peninsular 


*  Extract  of  a  Letter  respecting  the  Wrcch  of  the  "  Ladij 
IloUand,"  East  Indiaman,  from  tlio  Rev.  Alcxuudcr  Duff.  Edin- 
burgh, 1830. 


^t.  24.  AT   CAPE   TOWN.  79 

war,  declared,  •'  liumanity  has  tlie  first  claim."  The 
weather-beaten  party  landed  in  the  midst  of  the  British 
and  Dutch  inhabitants,  who  crowded  to  express  their 
sympathy. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Duff  were  received  by  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Adamson,  son  of  that  minister  at  Cupar  Fife  who 
had  been  colleague  of  Dr.  Campbell,  father  of  the 
Lord  Chancellor.  For  weeks  the  passengers  were  de- 
tained. The  next  East  Indiaman  was  so  full  that  three 
of  them  paid  a  hundred  guineas  each  to  be  allowed  to 
swing  their  cots  in  the  steerage.  Furlough  rules  make 
no  allowance  for  even  shipwreck,  and  high  salaries 
draw  belated  officials.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Duif  could  get 
a  passage  in  the  last  ship  of  the  season,  the  Molra, 
and  that  only  on  payment  of  3,000  rupees  !  This  sum 
was  equal  to  £2G2  10s.  in  gold,  such  was  the  rate  of 
exchange  then  as  now.  From  Cape  Town  he  thus 
addressed  Dr.  Chalmers  : — 

"  Cape  Town,  March  hth,  1830. 

"  My  Dear  Doctoi?, — I  know  your  time  is  precious 
and  I  shall  not  detain  you,  as  my  tale  may  be  briefly 
told  :  On  Saturday  night,  February  13th,  the  Lady 
Holland  was  w^reckcd  off  Dassen  Island,  forty  miles 
north  from  Cape  Town,  but  not  a  life  was  lost,  not 
even  a  personal  injury  sustained  by  any  one  of  the 
passengers  or  ciew.  This  is  the  fact :  for  a  detail  of 
the  fact  and  its  consequences  I  refer  you  to  a  com- 
munication of  this  date,  addressed  to  Dr.  Inglis  as  the 
official  organ  of  the  Assembly's  committee.  You  will 
there  have  an  account  of  the  nature  of  our  danger  and 
deliverance,  our  severe  loss  and  future  prospects. 
And  the  object  of  ray  writing  to  yoii  separately,  is — 
that  a  circumstance  so  calamitous  in  its  aspect  may 
not  be  permitted  to  cool  zeal  or  damp  exertion,  but 
may  be  improved,  to  kindle  a  new  flame  throughout 


So  LIFE   OF    DIJ.    DUFP.  1830 

the  Churcli  and  cause  it  to  burn  inextinguishably. 
As  remarked  in  the  communication  referred  to, '  tliough 
part  of  the  first-fruits  of  the  Churcli  of  Scotland  in 
the  great  cause  of  Cliristian  philanthropy  has  perished 
in  the  total  wreck  of  the  Lad//  Ilulland,  the  cause  of 
Christ  has  not  perished.  The  former,  like  the  leaves 
of  autumn,  may  be  tossed  al)outby  every  tempest;  the 
latter,  more  stal)le  than  nature,  ever  reviving  with 
the  bloom  of  youth,  will  flourish  when  nature  herself 
is  no  more. 

*'  The  cause  of  Christ  is  a  heavenly  and  divine 
thing,  and  shrinks  from  the  touch  of  earth.  Often 
has  its  high  origin  been  gloriously  vindicated.  Often 
has  it  cast  a  mockery  on  the  mightiest  efforts  of 
human  power.  Often  has  it  gathered  strength  amid 
weakness,  become  rich  amid  losses,  rejoiced  amid 
dangers,  and  triumphed  amid  the  fires  and  tortures  of 
hoU-enkindled  men.  And  shall  the  Church  of  Scotland 
dishonour  such  a  cause,  by  exhibiting  any  symptoms 
of  coldness  or  despondency  in  consequence  of  the 
recent  catastrophe !  God  forbid.  Let  her  rather 
arouse  herself  into  new  energy;  let  her  shake  off 
every  earthly  alliance  with  the  cause  of  Christ,  as  a 
retarding,  polluting  alliance ;  let  her  confide  less  in 
her  own  resources  and  more  in  the  arm  of  Him  who 
saith,  *  Not  by  power,  nor  by  might,  but  by  My  Spirit.' 
From  her  faithful  appeals  let  the  flame  of  devotedness 
circulate  through  every  parish,  and  prayers  ascend  to 
*  the  Lord  of  the  harvest, '  from  every  family ;  and 
then  may  we  expect  her  fountains  to  overflow,  for  the 
watering  and  fertilizing  of  many  a  dry  and  parched 
heathen  land. 

"  This  is  the  improvement  suggested ;  and  of  all 
men  living  you,  my  dear  Doctor,  are,  with  God's 
blessing,  the  individual  most  capable  of  making  it. 
Let  the  committee  be  awakened,  and,  from  the  awaken- 


^t.  24.  SAILS    FROM    CAPE   TOWN.  8 1 

ing  appeals  of  tlio  committee,  let  tlie  Cliurcli  be  aroused. 
Who,  that  has  heard  it,  can  ever  forget  your  own 
vivid  description  and  eloquent  improv^ement  of  the 
magnificent  preparation  and  total  failure  of  the  first 
great  missionary  enterprise  ?  F  om  it  ours  stands  at 
an  immeasurabb  distance ;  but  the  principle  is  the 
same.  I  fear  that  much  of  calculatinor  worldliness  is 
apt  to  enter  into  the  schemes  and  preparations  of  the 
Assembly.  And  now  Heaven  frowns  in  mercy,  and 
buries  a  portion  of  its  fruits  in  the  depths  of  ocean, 
to  excite,  if  possible,  to  the  clierishing  of  a  holier 
spirit,  and  a  more  prayerful  waiting  on  the  Lord  for 
the  outpouring  of  His  grace. 

"  Mrs.  Duff  desires  her  kindest  remembrance  to 
you,  and  with  kindest  regards  to  Mrs.  Chalmers  and 
family,  I  remain,  my  dear  Doctor,  yours  most  sin- 
cerely, cc  K  T\  J» 

•^'  "Alexander  Duff. 

"  Sunday  sail,  never  fail,"  was  the  chant  to  which 
the  sailors  lifted  the  anchor  for  Calcutta.  But  the 
day  proved  to  be  no  better  omen  than  the  derelict 
timber-ship  which  had  crossed  the  bows  of  the  Ladi/ 
Holland  in  the  English  Channel.  Contrary  winds 
drove  the  Moira  to  fifty  degrees  of  south  latitude,  and 
then  for  weeks  she  was  beaten  out  of  her  course  by 
westerly  gales,  culminating  off  Mauritius  in  a  hur- 
ricane which  threatened  the  foundering  of  the  ship. 
Although  the  year  1830  was  well  advanced,  and  Lord 
William  Bentinck  had  not  been  satisfied  with  the  first 
attempt  to  send  a  steamer  from  Bombay  to  Suez,  all 
the  rewards  offered  had  failed  to  discover  the  course 
and  the  tacking  which  have  since  reduced  the  Capo 
voyage  from  an  uncertainty  that  might  spread  beyond 
half  the  year,  to  an  average  of  a  hundred  dnjs.  Not 
till  near  the  end  of  May  did  the  Moira  sight  the  hardy 
little  pilot  brig  which,  far  out  in  the  Bay  of  Bengal 

a 


82  LIFE   OF  DK.    DUFF.  1830. 

but  still  in  the  muddy  waters  of  tlie  united  Ganges 
and  Brahmapootra  rivers,  is  the  advanced  post  of 
British  India  proper. 

The  hot  sun  was  blazing  with  intcnsest  power 
as  the  belated  East  Indiaman  was  carefully  navi- 
gated into  the  estuary  of  the  Hooghly,  the  most 
westerly  of  the  so-called  mouths  of  the  Ganges. 
Hardly  had  she  been  moored  in  the  rapid  stream 
off  the  long,  low  muddy  flat  of  Saugar  Island,  when 
the  south-west  monsoon  was  upon  her  in  all  that 
splendid  fury  which  the  Hindoo  epics  describe  with 
almost  Homeric  realism.  The  clouds  hid  the  sun,  and 
ffave  birth  to  a  storm  which  soon  chano^ed  into  the 
dreaded  cyclone.  It  seemed  a  portentous  welcome  at 
the  very  threshold  of  India,  after  the  previous  wreck 
at  its  then  outmost  gate.  In  spite  of  three  anchors 
thrown  out  the  Molra  was  dragged,  tossed  and — as 
we  have  twice  since  seen  in  similar  cases — lifted  by 
the  wind  and  the  storm- wave  on  to  the  muddy  shore 
of  the  Saugar,  the  sagara  or  Cobleutz  or  confluence  of 
Gunga  with  the  ocean.  The  river  was  of  unusually 
vast  A^olume,  the  low  delta  land  was  flooded.  Poised 
on  the  very  edge  of  Saugar  bank,  with  some  ten  feet 
of  water  on  the  shore  and  sixty  or  seventy  on  the 
river-side,  and  wedged  in  this  position  by  the  force  of 
the  hurricane,  the  Molra  worked  for  herself  a  bed  in 
the  clay.  There  is  no  lime  for  calculation  when  the 
genius  of  the  cyclone  rides  the  rotary  storm  so  that 
no  living  thing  can  stand  upright.  But  instinct  takes 
the  place  of  thought,  and  the  love  of  life  develops 
daring  which,  in  calmer  hours,  were  madness.  The 
vessel  was  soon  found  to  bo  very  slowly  heeling  over 
into  the  deep  water.  But  nothing  could  be  done,  for 
the  great  wind  of  heaven  was  still  loose,  and  the  mid- 
night darkness  that  might  bo  felt  was  broken  only  by 
the  flash  of  the  forked  lightning.    The  captain  managed 


JEt  24.      THE    CYCLONE    AND   THE    SECOND    SniPWRECK.         83 

to  secure  the  ship's  papers  on  his  person,  and  waited 
for  tlie  dawn,  which  revealed  the  vessel  leaning  over  at 
a  sharp  angle,  but  still  kept  from  disappearing  by  the 
wedge-like  compression  of  the  silt  of  the  bank.  Often 
afterwards  did  Alexander  Duff  describe  the  scene  on 
which  that  May  morning  broke,  and  the  deliverance. 

The  appearance  of  the  river  from  the  cuddy  por- 
tion of  the  hull  was  very  awful.  The  wind,  in 
mighty  whirling  eddies,  raised  up  columns  of  water 
which  came  down  like  so  many  cataracts.  From  the 
extremely  perilous  position  of  the  ship  it  was  necessary 
that  all  should  be  put  on  shore,  but  that  meant  deep 
water.  One  largo  tree,  however,  was  espied,  and  to 
that  the  pilot  and  the  natives  succeeded  in  making  a 
hawser  fast,  by  swimming  to  its  branches.  Along  this 
a  boat  was  moored  to  the  tree,  and  there,  on  somewhat 
higher  ground,  the  passengers  were  "  landed  "  up  to 
the  waist  in 'water,  at  the  time  rolling  in  billows. 
The  wind  drove  all,  passengers  and  crew,  inland  to  a 
village  where  caste  forbade  the  natives  to  give  them 
shelter.  The  island  stretches  for  ten  miles  in  length 
and  five  in  breadtl  and  at  that  time  had  a  population 
of  some  ten  thousand  persons,  who  lived  by  the  manu- 
factui'e  of  salt,  and  on  the  offerings  of  the  pilgrims  at 
the  annual  bathing  festival  of  the  winter  solstice, 
which  used  to  attract  a  quarter  of  a  million  of  devotees 
from  all  parts  of  India.  Denied  access  to  the  few  huts 
that  were  not  flooded,  the  shipwrecked  party  took 
possession  of  the  village  temple.  Whether  it  was  that 
of  the  sage  Kapilmoonnee,  whose  curse  had  destroyed 
the  eponymous  Sagar,  king  of  Oiidh,  with  its  great 
banyan  tree  in  front,  or  the  tiger-haunted  pagoda 
which  forms  the  centre  of  the  fair,  we  know  not.  But 
it  was  thus  that  the  first  missionary  of  the  Church  of 
Scotland  was,  with  his  wife  and  fellows,  literally 
thrown  on  the  mud-formed  strand  of  Bengal,   where 


$4  LIFE    OF  DR.    DUFF.  1830. 

the  last  land  of  tlio  lioly  goddess,  Gunga,  receives  her 
embrace,  and  manv  a  motlior  was  tlien  wont  to  commit 
licr  living  child  to  the  pitiless  waters. 

When  the  tidings  reached  the  capital,  a  hundred 
miles  np  the  Ilooghly,  numerous  small  boats  of  tlie 
covered  "  dinghy "  class  began  to  appear.  In  one 
of  these  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Duff  arrived  at  the  City  of 
Palaces,  dvenchod  with  mud,  and  terribly  exhausted 
after  twenty-four  hours  in  the  temple  following  such  a 
day  and  night  of  storm.  Young  Durand,  too,  found 
his  way  to  the  city,  to  the  palace  of  the  Bishop,  where 
the  tall  lieutenant  for  some  days  excited  amusement 
by  appearing  in  the  epicene  dress  of  his  kind  host. 
The  Duffs  were  hospitably  entertained  by  Dr.  Brown, 
the  junior  Scottish  cluiplain.  In  due  time  three 
steamers  dragged  the  Moira  off  Saugar  shore,  sorely 
shattered,  but  thus  the  baofrrnGfe  was  saved.  It  was 
on  the  27th  May,  1830,  that  they  readied  the  scene 
of  the  next  third  of  a  century's  triumphs,  having  left 
Edinburgh  on  the  19th  September,  1829,  more  than 
eight  mouths  before. 

The  first  to  visit  Mr.  Duff  the  evening  on  which 
he  landed  were  his  old  St.  Andrews  companion,  the 
llcv.  J.  Adam,  and  his  afterwards  life-long  friend 
and  greatly  beloved  brother,  the  Rev.  A.  F.  Lacroix, 
both  of  the  London  Missionary  Society.  Next  day 
came  the  venerable  Archdeacon  Corrie,  fruit  of 
Simeon's  work ;  also  Dr.  Bryce,  the  senior  chaplain ; 
General  Beatson,  and  other  Christian  strangers,  who, 
with  the  more  than  freemasonry  that  has  not  yet  died 
out  of  Anglo-India,  desired  to  welcome  Duff  to  Bengal. 
His  own  letters  of  introduction,  preserved  on  his 
person  in  the  two  shipwrecks,  he  duly  presented. 
With  his  wife  ho  lost  no  time  in  calling  at  Government 
House  on  Lady  William  Bentinck,  who  received  them 
not  merely  with  courtesy  but  with  genial  Christian 


JEt  24.  LANDS   AT   CALCUTTA.  85 

sympathy.  Tlio  Governor-General  bimsclf  did  not 
need  the  letter  from  a  personal  friend  at  liomo,  to 
give  tlio  young  missionary  a  warm  reception.  His 
Excellency  sent  for  him,  spoke  encouragingly  to  him, 
and  at  a  private  dinner  fully  entered  into  his  plans. 
"Was  Lord  William  not  the  greatest  of  the  Bentiucks, 
the  best  of  all  the  Governor-Generals  ? 

Alexander  Dulf  was  little  more  than  twenty-fonr 
years  of  ago  when,  a  tall  and  handsome  man,  with 
flashing  eye,  quivering  voice,  and  restless  gesticulation, 
ho  first  told  the  ruler  of  India  what  he  liad  given  his 
life  to  do  for  its  people.  Heir  of  Knox  and  Chalmers, 
he  had  to  begin  in  the  heart  of  Hindooism  what  they 
had  carried  out  in  the  medicGvalism  of  Rome  and  the 
moderatism  of  the  Kirk  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
He  had  also  to  make  it  a  missionary  Kirk.  His  work 
was  to  be  twofold — in  East  and  West. 

Need  we  wonder  that,  when  the  Calcutta  news- 
papers told  the  story  of  the  repeated  shipwrecks,  the 
very  natives  remarked — "  Surely  this  man  is  a  favourite 
of  the  gods,  who  must  have  some  notable  work  for 
him  to  do  in  India  ?'* 


CHAPTER  rV. 

1830. 
CALCUTTA  AS  IT  WAS. 

Duff  disobeys  tlie  only  Order  of  his  CliurcL. — Calcutta  a  fourtli  of 
London. — Bengal. — Job  Charnock  selects  KalUatta. — Tho  First 
European  Settlers. — Growtli  of  the  City. — Native.s  be<>inning  to 
learn  Enj^lish. — Foiinders  of  the  great  ]?cngalec  Families. — Tho 
leading  Natives  Oi  Bull's  Arrival. — Tho  washerman  who  first 
taught  English. — Adventnro  Schools. — Matrimonial  Value  of 
Penmanship  then  and  of  "t.A.  Degree   now. — The  Oriental 

Colleges  and  Orientalists. — i^  natchcs  Written  by  James  Mill. — 
Dufl's  Account  of  tho  Origin  of  the  First  English  College  in 
India. — Tentative  Efforts  of  tho  Early  Missionaries. — The  Work 
of  Destruction  Begun,  -who  shall  Construct  ? 

Having  secured  full  power  to  carry  out  his  own  plaus 
unfettered  by  conditions  in  Scotland  or  on  the  spot, 
and  having  failed  to  obtain  from  his  Church  any  in- 
structions for  his  guidance  save  one,  Mr.  Duff's  first 
duty  was  to  refuse  to  give  effect  to  tliat  one.  He 
had  been  forbidden  to  open  his  mission  in  Calcutta. 
Why,  it  is  difficult  to  understand,  in  the  absence  of 
all  reasons  assigned  for  such  a  prohibition.  So  the 
agents  of  the  Scottish  Missionary  Society  before  Dr. 
Wilson  had  neglected  Bombay  city,  while  shut  out  from 
the  Maratha  capital  of  Poona,  and  had  wasted  years 
in  the  obscure  villages  of  the  Konkan.  The  example 
of  tho  Apostles,  beginning  at  Jerusalem,  might  have 
sufficed.  The  first  of  all  Protestant  missions  and 
colleges  in  Bengal  had,  indeed,  been  established  out- 
side of  the  capital,  but  that  was  because  the  East 
India  Company's  early  intolerance  had  driven  Carey 


^t.  24.  TIIK    MODERN    CALCUTTA.  87 

and  Marshman  to  the  protection  of  the  little  Danish 
Government  at  Serampore.  Bishop  Miildleton  had 
followed,  spontaneonsly,  the  unfortunate  precedent,  by 
building  his  Gothic  pile  so  Far  down  the  right  bank  of  the 
Hooghly  that  his  college  has  proved  useless  for  its  great 
object  ever  since.  This  only  had  been  determined  on 
by  Dr.  Inglis  and  Mr.  Duff,  that  the  first  missionary 
was  to  open  a  school  or  college,  just  because  that  line  of 
proselytising  work  had  been  neglected  by  the  few  other 
missionaries  then  in  Calcutta.  When  Duff  had  seen 
these  at  work,  in  the  city  and  all  round  it  to  Carey 
at  Serampore,  and  twenty-five  miles  up  the  river  to 
Chinsurah  and  the  old  factory  of  Hooghly,  he  resolved 
to  begin  his  career  by  disobeying  the  one  order  ho  had 
received.  It  was  the  resolve  of  genius,  the  beginning 
of  an  ever-growing  success,  without  which  failure, 
comparatively,  was  inevitable.  The  young  Scot  had 
vowed  to  kill  Ilindooism,  and  this  he  could  best  do  by 
striking  at  its  brain.  Benares,  Poorce,  Bombay  more 
lately,  might  have  been  its  heart ;  but  Calcutta  was  its 
brain.  Let  others  pursue  their  own  methods  in  their 
own  places,  he  would  plant  his  foot  down  here,  among 
the  then  half-million  eager,  fermenting  Bengalees, 
feeling  after  God  if  haply  they  might  find  Him  with 
Western  help,  and  about  to  be  used  by  the  English 
Government  as  instruments  for  carrying  its  civilization 
all  over  Eastern,  Central  and  North-western  India. 

Calcutta,  the  metropolis  of  the  British  Empire  in 
the  southern  half  of  Asia,  now  covers  an  area  of 
thirty-one  square  miles,  and  has  a  fixed  population  of 
900,000,  exclusive  of  the  hundreds  of  thousands  who 
daily  visit  the  port,  the  markets,  the  offices,  the  ware- 
houses, the  domestic  homes  and  the  schools  for  trade, 
service  and  education.  That  is,  the  greatest  city 
of  the  English  in  the  East  is  just  one  fourth  the  size, 
in  area  and  inhabitants,  of  London  itself  within  the 


88  LIFE   OF    DR.    DUI'P.  1830. 

juristHctlon  of  the  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works  or 
the  district  of  the  School  Board.  London  had  the 
same  population  at  the  bogininng  of  this  century  as 
Calcutta  now  has.  To  what  point  Calcutta  will  reach 
in  the  next  century,  under  tlio  same  wise  and  peaceful 
administration  which  has  made  it  what  it  is,  he  may 
conjecture  who  hest  realizes  its  unparalleled  position. 
It  is  at  once  the  centre  of  tho  most  densely  packed 
and  fast-breeding  rural  population  in  the  world,  and 
of  a  network  of  rivers,  canals  and  railways  compared 
with  which  those  that  have  created  Holland  are  micro- 
scopic. It  is  the  focus  of  our  whole  political  system 
in  Asia. 

Itself  impregnable  by  nature  and  the  entrepot  of  the 
wealth  of  Bengal,  Calcutta  has  sent  forth  triumphant 
expeditions  to  Burma,  to  Java,  to  Canton  and  to  Peking 
in  the  far  East.  It  has  been  prepared  to  civilize  the 
Maories  of  Australasia,  as  it  had  previously  pushed 
the  edge  of  the  sword  that  separates  evil  from  good 
into  the  heart  of  the  Pathans  of  the  Suleiman  range 
and  the  Western  Himalayas.  From  Calcutta,  Mauri- 
tius and  even  the  Cape  have  been  started  on  a  new 
career.  Embassies  from  the  palace  of  its  Governor- 
General,  still  known  simply  as  Government  House, 
seventy  years  ago  dictated  terms  of  peace  and  pro- 
gress, against  the  barbarous  aggression  of  Russian 
and  French  absolutism,  to  the  Shah  of  Persia,  the 
Ameer  of  Cabul,  and  the  Maharaja  of  the  Sikhs,  when 
the  Sutlej  was  our  only  frontier  besides  the  sea. 
Were  we  basely  to  retire  from  the  responsibilities  of 
empire,  and  confine  our  administrative  system  to  the 
one  Lieutenant-Governorship  of  Bengal,  its  swarming 
sixty  millions  would  enable  Calcutta  to  send  to  the 
mother  country  a  clear  annual  surplus  of  from  four 
to  six  millions  sterling.  For  it  is  with  the  twelve  mil- 
lions of  revenue  yielded  every  year  by  Bengal,  that 


CALCUTTA 


Scale  of  I  English  MUe 


■t 


2  S^Jbfin's  Church 

3  ad  Hunan  CK. 

4  3*  Anirawi  JErh 

5  J^to  Ouaf  Scotlarul 

6  Xfinian,  OujptH^ 

7  BapUrt  Chapd' 
0  .SgK  Court 

9  Jbtt  Of/it» 
10  HiwTvSaZb 
U  SnMootPresuUiuyiaiUeye/ 

14  DovetoTu  CoHtgt 

15  CauraZ  Atstmhly  Jturt'} 
IG  la,  JUiarttnura 

V  Fret  Ovurohi  inat. 
tHaDr  DxjJfh  Hou^e 


^ 


\ 


r/". 


BtrwTfi 


19  .A<c«  Church,  MiaaioTV  ^ 

20  Urvuresrsify 

21  BenofoUjvti  hurtttutUm,      . 

22  MtdbLaHConegu  ®' 

23  Cofi'i  itG«s.  CoUegt/    ibfl 
2i  ^auu;09u«  «»-^^/ 
25  .^otwr's  CoU^efAC 
20  Seotoh  Conatery 

27  ^fTTR^nuzTi/  Cv- 

28  Xoman  GufioSc 

Ouhtdral 

29  OustcmllotLSe, 

30  SaHars'  Borne 


^^m 


a<  Gmmalht  Sftuo^ 
\>    CoVege   Stuart 
C    HUiinyton.  Jfr^.  re 
a.  VaVuiujii*  3ifujirt, 
^^TVJluUif  Square 


18 


to 


B 


ei 


>^ 


/HIi] 


&o 


Ki 


a 


FOBI 


^ 


B 


^^ 


Af 


'26 


s^fo 


Al  ip  o  r^ 

femora  Hqubc  m 


\t\ 


Jiy  pemU'iMoTi    o'' tJiC    "hurrh    Mici>HL<ntnry  >')oii4:fy 


^t.  24.  JOB   CnAENOCK   FOUNDS   CALCUTTA.  89 

Calcutta    has   spread   tlie    British   Empire    all    over 
Southern  Asia. 

In  the  Old  World  thore  is  no  example  of  the  growtli 
of  a  capital  so  rapid.  In  159G  this  mighty  metro- 
polis figures  on  the  rent-roll  of  the  Emperor  Akbar 
as  Kalkatta,  one  of  three  villaofos  in  the  district  of 
Hooglily  which  together  paid  an  annual  tax  of  £2,31-1. 
The  great  temple,  still  in  its  suburbs,  is  that  of  the 
black  destroying  goddess  of  Kaleegliat.  Driven  from 
the  factory  at  Rooghly  by  the  Mussulman  officer  of 
Aurungzeb,  the  East  India  Company's  agent,  the 
notorious  Mr.  Job  Charnock,  with  his  council,  sailed 
down  the  river  in  search  of  another  site.  Oolabaria, 
on  the  same  right  bauk  and  somewhat  below  the 
present  Botanical  Garden,  was  tried.  But,  though 
the  ferry  town  on  the  high  road  to  the  shrine  of 
Jugganath,  in  Orissa,  that  place  had  the  two  disad- 
vantages of  bad  anchorage  and  exposure  to  the  raids 
of  the  Marathas.  Not  so  the  high  ground  immedi- 
ately to  the  north  of  Kalkatta.  There  the  river  was 
deep ;  its  expanse,  a  mile  broad  at  high  water,  protected 
the  place  from  the  western  devastators ;  and  the  sur- 
rounding inhabitants  were  a  prosperous  brotherhood 
of  weavers  for  the  Company's  trade.  Under  "  a  large 
shady  tree,"  somewhere  between  the  present  Mint  and 
the  most  orthodox  quarter  of  Sobha  Bazaar,  Job 
Charnock  set  up  the  Company's  flag  and  his  own 
zanana.  For  he  had  taken  to  himself  the  beautiful 
Suttee  or  Hindoo  widow  whom  ho  rescued  from 
cremation  only  to  be  himself  Hindooized,  and  on 
whose  tomb  ho  used  afterwards  to  sacrifice  a  cock, 
according  to  that  contemporary  gossip.  Captain 
Alexander  Hamilton.  It  is  significant  that  the 
second  college  which  Duff  built  as  the  Free  Church 
Institution  stands  in  the  great  thoroughfare  leading 
down   to   the   oldest   burning  ghaut,  NeemtoUa,  the 


90  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1830. 

place  of  the  neem-tree,  wliich  name  probably  em- 
balms tlie  tradition  of  that  "  large  shady  tree."  Many 
a  suttee  must  have  taken  place  within  car-shot  of  the 
founder  of  Calcutta,  who  used  to  have  his  sentences 
of  whipping  executed  on  native  offenders  "  when  he 
was  at  dinner,  so  near  his  dining-room  that  the  groans 
and  cries  of  the  poor  delinquent  served  him  for 
music." 

The  days  of  the  glorious  Revolution  had  come ;  the 
new  East  India  Company  got  a  new  and  most  Chris- 
tian charter ;  the  old  church  of  St.  John  was  raised 
with  a  proud  steeple  only  to  be  cast  down  by  the  next 
cyclone ;  and  the  Fort,  of  Black  Hole  memory,  was 
i^uilt  in  Kalkatta  village  under  William  the  Third's 
name.  The  Court  of  Directors,  too,  under  revolu- 
tion influences,  became  Christian  once  more,  and 
directed  their  agent  at  Calcutta  to  use  this  mis- 
sionary form  of  prayer  :  *'  That  these  Indian  nations 
among  whom  we  dwell,  seeing  our  sober  and  righteous 
conversation,  may  be  induced  to  have  a  just  esteem 
for  our  most  holy  profession  of  the  gospel."  Char- 
nock's  rough  and,  towards  the  natives,  revengeful 
administration  ceased  five  or  six  years  after  his  first 
settlement  at  Kalkatta.  Sir  John  Goldsborough  was 
sent  by  the  older  and  then  superior  Government  of 
Madras  to  reform  the  little  colony,  which  he  began 
to  do  by  sending  the  Roman  Catholic  priests  off"  to 
Bandel,  because  they  encouraged  the  civilians  to  form 
connections  with  the  half-breed  Portuo^uese  under  their 
influence.  "  In  Calcutta  »11  religions  are  tolerated 
but  the  Presbj'terians,  and  they  are  browbeat,"  wrote 
Hamilton.  By  1706  there  were  1200  English  in  the 
infant  capital;  but  such  were  the  excesses  of  many 
of  them,  and  such  the  absence  of  sanitary  arrange- 
ments adapted  to  the  climate,  that  460  burials  were 
registered  in  that  year.     Hamilton  blames  the  site  of 


JEt.  24.  THE    LLACK    HOLE    AND    PLASSEY.  9 1 

the  factory,  and  especially  tlio  neiglibouriiig  saltwater 
lakes  or  swamps.  But  time  and  science  have  proved 
that  Job  Charnock  selected  a  jiosition  on  which  nearly 
a  million  of  human  beings,  many  of  them  foreigners 
from  the  cold  north,  live  and  labour  with  a  rate  of 
mortality  little  higher  tlia.i  that  of  London.  The 
water,  the  drainage,  the  gas,  the  conservancy  arrange- 
ments of  the  modern  Calc  itta  may  compare  favour- 
ably with  those  of  the  other  capitals  of  the  world. 

By  1752  the  population  had  grown,  according  to 
Holwcll,  to  400,000,  when  the  irate  Governor  of 
Bengal,  Sooraj-ood-Dowla,  made  a  swoop  upon  them 
from  his  capital  of  Moorshedabad.  Cf  the  English 
who  did  not  flee  to  the  ships  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
three  perished  within  twenty  feet  square  of  the  guard- 
room called,  by  the  soldiers  usually  confined  there,  the 
Black  Hole.  Instead  of  the  Hindoo  Ghaut  of  Kalee, 
the  city  was  re-named  the  Muhammadan  place  of  Alee, 
Aleenuggur.  But  the  sack  and  the  burning  proved 
only  new  sources  of  wealth,  when  Olive  and  Watson 
had  chased  the  tyrant  back  to  his  capital,  and 
had  defeated  him  at  Plassey.  In  1758  a  long  pro- 
cession of  a  hundred  boats,  laden  with  seven  hundred 
chests,  and  then  a  second  despatch,  brought  to  Cal- 
cutta the  largest  prize  that  the  British  people  had 
ever  taken,  or  £1,110,000  in  silver  rupees.  From 
much  of  tbat,  sent  as  compensation,  the  citizens, 
English,  Armenian,  Portuguese  and  Bengalee,  built  the 
present  city  of  Calcutta  and  Fort  William.  The  reign 
of  extravagance  began ;  but  also  that  of  health,  be- 
nevolence, education  and,  gradually,  outward  respect 
for  religion.  There  were  two  thousand  Europeans  in 
the  new  city,  many  of  whom,,  had  spent  twenty  or 
thirty  years  in  India  without  once  attending  public 
worship.  For  them  a  new  St.  John's  arose  in  the 
old  cemetery.     Friends   of   Cecil,   Simeon,   and    the 


92  LIFE    OF    DR.    DUFF.  18301 

Clapliam  men  were  sent  out  as  chaplains,  after 
Clive  had  purged  the  services.  Ho  liimself  invited 
the  missionary  Kiernander,  when  Lally  had  broken 
up  the  Lutheran  settlement  at  Cuddalore,  to  instruct 
the  natives  and  bury  the  Europeans  in  Calcutta,  after 
the  only  chaplain  there  had  perished  in  the  Black 
Hole.  The  Company's  ships  carried  liis  annual  sup- 
plies free,  and  ho  raised  the  building  wl  ich  still 
flourishes,  under  the  Church  Missionary  Society,  as 
the  old  mission  church,  thank;?  to  Charles  Grant's 
foresigl)t.  The  jungle,  termed  forest,  around  the  new 
Fort  AYilliam  was  cleared  away,  and  Calcutta  obtained 
that  magniPcent  plain  called  by  the  Persian  name 
Maidan,  around  which  are  its  great  public  buildings 
and  its  Chowri.ighee  paLaces.  By  the  close  of  last 
century,  when  the  Marquis  Wellesley  plrnted  down 
on  its  edge  the  fine  reproduction  of  Keddlestone 
Hall  in  Derbyshire,  designed  by  the  brothers  Adams, 
which  is  still  called  Government  House,  defying  the 
Court  of  Directors,  Calcutta  was  worthy  of  the 
position  given  it  in  the  days  of  Warren  Hastings  as 
"the  seat  of  the  central  government.  By  that  time 
it  had  become  the  outlet  and  the  inlet  for  the 
trade  of  all  Eastern  and  Northern  India  up  to  the 
Sutlej,  so  far  as  the  Company's  monopolies  allowed 
trade  to  follow  a  natural  course. 

The  necessities  of  intercourse  with  the  natives, 
diplomatically  with  the  court  at  Dacca  and  Moor- 
shedabad  and  commercially  with  the  capitalists  and 
manufacturerii,  had  early  created  a  class  of  interme- 
diaries and  assistants  between  the  English  and  the 
people  of  the  country.  Of  the  former  was  the 
Punjabee  Omichund,  the  wealthy  intriguer  who  tried 
to  cheat  both  Clive  and  the  Muhammadan  ruler, 
whom  he  had  instigated  to  the  destruction  of  tho 
English,  and  was  defeated  by  his  own  weapons.     Of 


Et.  24.         CALCUiTA    UNDEll    CLIVE    AND    UASTINGS.  93 

tlio  latter  were  nearly  all  the  great  Hindoo  families 
which  are  still  the  heads  of  native  society.  Lord 
Olive's  moonshee  was,  to  his  countrymen,  more  power- 
ful than  the  great  Governor  himself,  llaja  Nobokissen 
founded  a  house  like  the  Barin<j:s  of  Enj^land.  More 
famous  at  the  time,  though  now  forgotten,  was  Olive's 
dowan,  Ramchand.  In  the  year  of  the  victory  of 
Plassey  each  of  these  men  had  a  salary  of  £7'2 
pounds;  yet  on  his  death,  in  17G7,  ten  years  aft(;r, 
the  latter  left  a  fortune  of  a  million  and  a  quarter 
sterling.  Nobokissen  spent  ninety  thousand  pounds 
on  his  mother's  obsequies.  The  various  ghauts, 
or  bathing  places,  on  both  banks  of  the  Ilooghly, 
from  Oalcutta  to  Serampore,  commemorate  at  once 
the  wealth  and  the  superstition  of  the  men  who,  in 
those  days,  lived  on  the  ignorant  foreigners  whom 
they  assisted,  and  on  their  own  less  educated  country- 
men whom  they  oppressed.  Many  a  Bengalee  proverb 
has  come  down  from  the  times  of  Olive,  Yerelst  and 
Hastings,  such  as  the  triplet  which  Mr.  J.  0.  Marshmau 
used  thus  to  render — 

"  Who  does  not  know  Govindram's  club, 
Or  tlio  liou!-e  of"  Jjonmuleo  Sirkar, 
Or  the  beard  of  Omicliund?" 

Govindram  Mitter  was  the  "black  zemindar"  who 
for  thirty  years  was  the  nominal  subordinate  of  the 
English  collector  of  the  taxes  of  Calcutta  on  from 
j£36  to  .£60  a  year,  and  whom  only  the  brave  Holwell, 
hero  of  the  Black  Hole  time,  finally  deprived  of  the 
power  to  oppress  like  a  Turkish  pasha.  The  cruel 
e^xactions  of  Raja  Daby  Sing  under  Warren  Hastings 
have  been  handed  down  to  everlasting  shame  by  the 
eloquence  of  Sheridan. 

The  advance  merchants  known  as  "  Daduny," 
through  whom  the  Oompany  njade  its  contracts  with 


94  Wi^'iS   OF  Dli.    DUFF.  1830. 

the  native  weavers  for  their  calicoes  and  muslins,  which 
Lancashire  soon  learned  to  manufacture  from  Indian 
cotton  for  export,  were  the  first  to  learn  as  much 
English  as  was  necessary  for  their  intercourse  with 
the  masters  they  defrauded.  A  lower  class  were  the 
panders  and  agents  whom  ship  captains  were  forced 
to  use,  and  who  still,  as  from  the  seventeenth  century, 
mislead  our  sailors  to  their  too  fi-equenb  destruc- 
tion. Tiiese  were  termed  •'  dobhasias "  or  two- 
language  natives,  a  word  used  in  the  earlier  commercial 
transactions  at  the  Portuguese  Calicut  and  the  English 
Madras.  Ram  Komul  Sen,  the  author  of  the  first 
English  and  Bengalee  dictionary,  tells  in  his  preface 
how  the  first  English  captain  who  sailed  to  the  infant 
Calcutta  sent  ashore  askincf  for  a  dhobasia.  The 
Setts,  the  Bengalee  middlemen  who  helped  Job 
Charnock  to  buy  the  Company's  piece  goods,  in 
ignorance  of  the  word  sent  a  "  dhobee  "  or  washerman 
on  board,  with  propitiatory  gifts  of  plantains  and 
sugar-candy.  To  that  washerman,  wlio  made  good 
use  of  the  monopoly  of  English  which  he  acquired, 
the  native  lexicographer  ascribes  "  the  honour  of 
having  been  the  first  English  scholar,  if  scholar  ho 
could  be  called,  amongst  the  people  of  Bengal."  The 
mere  vocabulary  of  nouns,  adverbs,  and  interjections, 
which,  for  nearly  a  century,  constituted  the  English 
of  the  Bengalees,  as  it  still  forms  that  of  the  domestic 
servants  of  Madras,  became  improved  when  Sir  Elijah 
Inipey  went  out  to  establish  the  Supreme  Court  in 
1774.  Cases  like  the  trial  and  hanging  of  Nuncomar 
for  forgery,  and  the  growing  business  of  the  Court 
which  included  all  the  citizens  of  Calcutta  in  its 
jurisdiction,  while  the  judges  strove  to  extend  their 
power  far  into  the  interior,  made  the  next  generation 
of  middle-class  Bengalees  a  little  more  familiar  with 
English.     Interpreters,  clerks,  copjists,  and  agents  of 


^t.  24.  THE    GREAT    DENGALEE    FAMILIES.  95 

a.  respectable  class  were  in  demand,  alike  by  tlio 
Government  and  the  great  mercantile  houses.  For  a 
time  Lord  Cornwallis  pursued  the  illiberal  and,  as  it 
proved,  impossible  policy  of  employing  only  Europeans. 
Hence  the  greatest  nativ  ^  of  the  time^  whom  we  dhall 
learn  to  admire  hc.eafter,  Raja  Rammohun  Roy,  did 
not  begin  to  learn  English  till  he  was  twenty-two,  nor 
did  he  master  it  till  he  was  thirty. 

He  stood  at  the  head  of  the  leading  Hindoo  families 
of  Calcutta  at  the  time  of  DufTs  appearance  there. 
After  winning  the  gratitude  of  the  Government  as 
"  dowan  "  or  principal  native  assistant  to  the  Collector 
of  Rungpore,  he  had  settled  in  the  city  in  1814.  Others 
worthy  of  note  were  Dwarkanath  Tagoro,  of  the  mer- 
cantile firm  of  Carr,  Tagore  &  Co.,  and  his  cousin,  Pro- 
sunno  Coomar  Tagore,  great  landholder  and  lawyer. 
Ram  Komul  Sen,  already  alluded  to,  was  "dewan" 
of  the  Bnnk  of  Bengal.  Russomoy  Dutt  was  at  that 
time  "  banian "  or  broker  to  Messrs.  Cruttenden, 
Mackillop  &  Co.,  and  afterwards  honoured  judge  o£ 
the  Small  Cause  Court.  Raja  Radliakant  Deb  was 
head  of  the  orthodox  party.  Ram  Gopal  Gboso  was 
a  member  of  the  firm  of  Messrs.  Kelsall,  Ghose  &  Co. 
These  were  the  principal  English-speaking  native 
gentlemen,  the  most  active  in  the  education  of  their 
countrymen,  the  reformers  before  that  reformation 
of  which  the  young  Scottish  missionary  became  the 
apostle.  We  shall  see  how  the  Christianity  that  he 
brought  and  applied,  in  a  form  adapted  to  the  wants 
of  the  time,  tested  them  and  sifted  their  families,  and 
still  tries  their  descendants  as  a  divine  touchstone. 

How  did  these  men  and  the  other  respectable  Ben- 
galee families  get  their  English,  such  as  it  was,  before 
the  educational  as  well  as  spiritual  revolution  begun 
by  Duff?  First,  a  keen  self-interest  drove  them  to 
find   it  at   the   hands  of  Eurasians,  Armenians,  and 


96  LirE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1830. 

English  advonturers.  Then  Government,  which  had 
ignored  and  even  opposed  the  Enghsh  education  of 
the  natives,  was  forced  by  Parhament  to  patronise  it. 
Then  a  very  few  of  the  missionaries  at  that  time 
in  Bengal  lent  their  aid.  Bui-  all  proceeded  on  the 
same  mechanical,  utilitarian,  and  routine  sj^stem  which 
marked  English  schools  till  the  days  cf  Lancaster  and 
Beh. 

Sherborne,  a  Eurasian,  kept  a  school  in  the  Jo- 
rasanko  quarter,  where  Dwarkanath  Tagore  learned 
the  English  alphabet.  Martin  Bowl,  in  Amratolla, 
taught  the  founder  of  the  wealthy  Seal  family.  Ara- 
toon  Petroos  was  another  who  kept  a  school  of  fifty 
or  sixty  Bengalee  lads.  The  best  of  the  pupils  be- 
came teachers  in  their  turn  like  the  blind  Nittyanund 
Sen  in  Colootolla,  and  the  lame  Udytchurn  Sen,  who 
was  the  tutor  of  the  mlllionnalvG  Mulliks.  Their  text- 
books were  such  pitiful  productions  as  those  of  Dytclie 
-■  and  Enfield,  Cooke's  letters  and  Greenwood's  gram- 
mar. To  write  a  good  hand  was  far  more  important 
than  to  understand  what  was  read,  for  to  be  a  copyist 
or  book-keeper  was  the  destiny  of  the  majority.  One 
of  the  Mullik  family,  when  in  18G9  reviewing  that 
period  of  dim  twilight,  stated  in  his  own  English, 
"  that  the  betrothmcnt  of  a  maid  to  a  youth  fit  to 
wear  the  laurel  of  Hymen,  was  chiefly  influenced  by 
the  capability  of  the  latter  in  point  of  his  English 
penmanship,  a  specimen  of  which  was  invariably  called 
for  by  the  parent  of  the  girl."  Now  the  possession  of 
the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts  is  the  test,  a  fact  that 
gauges  the  whole  intellectual  and  social  progress  which 
Duff  had  come  to  set  in  motion  for  far  higher  religious 
ends.  As  the  vernaculars  of  the  country  were  neglected 
by  the  British  Government  for  the  Persian  of  its 
Muhammadan  predecessor,  so  English  had  to  give  way 
to  a  vicious  orientalism.     In  1780  AVarren  Hastings 


JEt.   24.         THE  ORIENTAL  COLLEGES.  97 

had  founded  tlio  Mddrissa  or  Muliammadan  college  in 
Calcutta,  to  conciliate  the  Moulvies  by  teaching  the 
•whole  range  of  the  religion  of  Islam,  and  preparing 
their   sons   as  officials   of  the  law  courts.     In   1791 
Jonathan  Duncan,  of  philanthropic  memory,  did  the 
same  for  the  Hindoos,  by  e«ta,  ^shing  the   Benares 
Sanscrit  College  avowedly  to  cultivate  their  "  laws, 
literature  and  religion."     From  Plassey  to  the  char- 
ter of  1813  was  the  most  evil  time  of  the  East  India 
Company's  intolerance  of  light  in  every  form,  so  much 
did  it  dread  the  overturning  of  a  political  fabric  which 
had  sprung  up  in  spite  of  it.     But  then  the  Court 
of  Directors  was  compelled  by  Parliament,  expressing 
weakly  the  voice  of  the  Christian  public,  to  write  the 
despatch   of  the    6th    September,  1813,  which   com- 
municated the  order  that  "  a  sum  of  not  less  than  one 
lakh  of  rupees   (£10,000)   in  each  year  shall  be  set 
apart  and  applied  to  the  revival  and  improvement  of 
literature,   and    the   encouragement    of    the    learned 
natives  of  India,  and  for  the  introduction  and  pro- 
motion of  a  knowledge  of  the  sciences  among  the  in- 
habitants of  the  British  territories  of  India."    Weakly, 
we  say,  for  Charles  Grant  had,  in  1792,  sketched  in 
detail,  and  had  continued  all  these  yep^'S  to  press  on 
the   court  and  in  Parliament,  a   scheme   of  tolerant 
English  and  vernacular  education,  of  such  far-sighted 
ability  and  benevolence  that  all  subsequent  progress 
to  the  present  hour  is  only  a  commentary  upon  his 
suggestions.* 

In  spite  of  the  charter  of  1813,  that  order  was  not, 
in  its  spirit  and  intention,  carried  out  till  Duff  landed 


*  Observations  o^r  the  State  of  Society  among  the  Asiatic  Subjects  of 
Great  Britain,  particularly  with  respect  to  Morals,  and  on  the  Means 
of  Improving  it.  Written  cliieP.y  iu  the  year  1792.  Ordered  by  the 
House  of  Commons  to  be  printed,  16th  June,  1813. 

H 


9^  LH'E   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1830. 

in  Calcutta.  First,  Colt'l)rooke — tlio  groatost  orien- 
talist who  has  yet  lived — when  a  raenihr  of  Lord 
Minto's  Council,  and  then  Dr.  H.  II.  Wilson — who, 
in  England,  comes  only  second  to  him — directed  the 
Parliamentary  instructions  to  t'.ie  establishment  of 
another  Sanscrit  college,  this  time  in  Calcutta.  The 
directors'  despatch  of  3rd  June,  1814,  Avas  all  in  favour 
of  such  orientalism,  but,  though  ignoring  English,  it 
deserves  the  credit  of  having  urged  the  establishment 
of  a  system  of  vernacular  schools,  on  Bell's  principles, 
from  a  cess  on  the  land.  Had  that  been  attended  to  as 
each  province  w\is  added  to  the  empire  or  settled  in  its 
land  revenue  and  tenures,  the  whole  work  of  national 
education  for  which  DufF  laboured  side  by  side  with 
his  English  system,  as  we  shall  see,  might  have  been 
done.  Instead  of  either,  the  public  money  was  so 
misapplied  as  to  call  forth  a  despatch  on  the  18th 
February,  1824,  in  which  James  Mill,  in  the  name  of 
the  directors,  reviewed  the  fruitless  and  wasteful  past, 
usino;  this  lanij^uage  : — 

"  The  great  end  should  noL  Lave  been  to  teach  Hindoo  learn- 
ii)g,  but  useful  learning.  No  doubt  in  teaching  useful  learning 
to  the  Hindoos  or  Muliammadans,  Hindoo  media  or  Muliam- 
inadan  media,  so  far  as  they  were  found  the  most  effectual, 
would  have  been  proper  to  be  employed,  and  Hindoo  and 
Muhammadan  prejudices  would  have  needed  to  be  consulted, 
while  everything  which  was  useful  in  Hindoo  or  Muhammadan 
literature  it  would  have  been  proper  to  retain  ;  nor  would 
there  have  been  any  insuperable  difficulty  in  introducing, 
under  these  reservations,  a  system  of  instruction  from  which 
great  advantage  might  have  been  derived.  In  professing,  on 
the  other  hand,  to  establish  seminaries  for  the  purpose  of 
teaching  mere  Hindoo  or  mere  Muhammadan  literature,  you 
bound  yourselves  to  teach  a  great  deal  of  what  was  frivolous, 
not  a  little  of  what  was  purely  mischievous,  and  a  small  re- 
mainder indeed  in  which  utility  was  in  any  way  concerned. 
In  the  new  college  which  is  to  be  instituted,  and  which  we 


/Et.  24.  THE  DIRECTORS  CONDEMN  THE  ORIENTAL  COLLECJES.      99 

think  you  have  acted  judiciously  in  placing  at  Calcutta  instead 
of  Nuddoa  and  Tirhoot  as  originally  sanctioned,  it  will  bo 
much  farther  in  your  power,  because  not  fettered  by  any  pre- 
ceding practice,  to  consult  the  pnuciplo  of  utility  iu  the  course 
of  study  which  you  nuiy  prescribe." 

Threo  years  later,  on  tlio  5th  September,  1827,  tho 
directors  took  a  stronger  position,  wlien  pointing  out 
that  the  course  of  education  must  not  merely  "  pro- 
duce a  higlier  degree  of  intellectual  fitness,  but  that  it 
will  contribute  to  raise  the  moral  cliaracter  of  those 
who  partake  of  its  advantages."  The  writer,  charac- 
teristically, could  not  find  "  the  best  security  against 
desfradinof  vices "  elsewhere  than  in  "  that  rational 
self-esteem  "  of  which  his  greater  son's  autobiography 
gives  us  such  sad  glimpses.  But  that  despatch  had 
hardly  been  discussed  and  angrily  answered  by  the 
orientalists  around  the  Governor-General,  when  Duff 
gave  himself  to  the  life  task  oi  supplying  the  only 
motive  power  which  would  secure  "  the  last  and 
highest  object  of  education  "  to  the  natives  of  India. 

Fortunately  we  have  his  own  account  of  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  first  English  college  in  India,  tho 
Vidyalaya,  or  Anglo-Indian,  or  Hindoo  College,  as 
given  in  his  evidence  before  the  select  committee  of 
the  House  of  Commons  previous  to  the  Company's  last 
charter  of  1853.  The  immediate  precursor  of  that 
movement  was  the  minute  of  2nd  October,  1815,  in 
which  Lord  Hastings,  declaring  his  solicitude  for  the 
moral  and  intellectual  condition  of  the  natives,  pro- 
jected a  system  of  public  instruction,  and  thereafter 
visited  Serampore  to  inspect  its  schools  and  encour- 
age its  missionaries.  The  David  Hare  mentioned  was 
the  son  of  a  watchmaker  in  London,  who  and  whose 
brothers  made  a  modest  fortune  in  India. 


€t 


The  system  of  English  education  commenced  in  the  follow- 


lOO  LIFE   OP   DR,    DUFF.  1830. 

ing  very  simplo  way  in  Bengal.  Tlicre  woro  two  persona  who 
had  to  do  with  it,— one  was  Mr.  13avid  Hare,  and  the  other 
was  a  native,  Rainmohim  Roy.  In  the  year  1815  they  woro  in 
consultation  one  evening  with  a  few  friends  as  to  what  should 
bo  done  with  a  viow  to  the  elevation  of  the  native  mind  and 
character.  Ilainmohun  lioy's  proposition  was  that  they  should 
establish  an  assembly  or  convocation,  in  which  what  aro  called 
the  higher  or  purer  dogmas  of  Vedantism  or  ancient  Hindooism 
might  be  taught  j  in  short  tho  Pantheism  of  tho  Vedas  and 
their  Upanishads,  but  what  Ilammohun  Roy  delighted  to  call 
by  the  more  genial  title  of  Monotheism.  Mr.  David  Uaro  was 
a  watchmaker  in  Calcutta,  an  ordinary  illiterate  man  himself; 
but  being  a  man  of  great  energy  and  strong  practical  sense, 
he  said  the  plan  should  be  to  institute  an  English  school  or 
college  for  the  instruction  of  native  youths.  Accordingly  ho 
soon  drew  up  and  issued  a  circular  on  the  subject,  which 
gradually  attracted  the  attention  of  the  leading  Europeans, 
and,  among  others,  of  the  Chief  Justice  Sir  Hyde  East.  Being 
led  to  consider  the  proposed  measure,  he  entered  heartily  into 
it,  and  got  a  meeting  of  European  gentlemen  assembled  in 
May,  181G.  He  invited  also  some  of  the  influential  natives  to 
attend.  Then  it  was  unanimously  agreed  that  they  should 
commence  an  institution  for  tho  teaching  of  English  to  tho 
children  of  the  higher  classes,  to  be  designated  '  The  Hindoo 
College  of  Calcutta/  A  large  joint  committee  of  Europeans 
and  natives  was  appointed  to  carry  the  design  into  effect.  In 
the  beginning  of  1817  the  college,  or  rather  school,  was 
opened,  and  it  was  the  very  first  English  seminary  in  Bengal, 
or  even  in  India,  as  far  as  I  know.  In  the  joint  committee 
there  was  a  preponderance  of  natives,  and  partly  from  iieir 
inexperience  and  inaptitude,  and  partly  from  their  absurd 
prejudices  and  jealousies,  it  was  not  very  well  managed  nor 
very  successful.  Indeed,  had  it  not  been  for  the  untiring 
perseverance  of  Mr.  Hare,  it  would  have  soon  come  to  an  end. 
The  number  of  pupils  enrolled  at  its  first  opening  was  but 
small — not  exceeding  twenty — and  even  all  along,  for  the 
subsequent  five  or  six  years,  the  number  did  not  rise  above 
sixty  or  seventy.  Then  it  was,  when  they  were  well-nigh  in 
a  state  of  total  wreck,  and  most  of  the  Europeans  had  retired 
from  the  management  in  disgust,  that  Mr,  Hare  and  a  few 
others  resolved  to  apply  to  the  Government  for  help  as  the  only 


^':t.  24.        THE    FIRST   ENGLISH    SCHOOL    IN    INDIA.  10 1 

means  of  savinj?  the  sinkitif?  institution  from  irretriovnblo  ruin. 
The  Govornmeut,  when  thus  appealed  to,  did  come  forward  and 
proffer  its  aid  upon  certain  reasonable  terms  and  conditions  ; 
and  it  was  iu  this  way  that  the  British  Government  was  first 
brought  into  an  activo  participation  in  the  cause  of  Euylish 
education. 

"The  Gcvernnient  then  came  forward  and  said  in  substance, 
— *If  you  will  allow  us  to  appoint  a  duly  qualified  visitor,  so 
as  to  give  us  some  control  over  the  course  of  instruction,  wo 
will  help  you  with  a  considerable  pecuniary  granc'  But, 
however  equitable  the  proposal  that  they,  as  large  subscribers 
to  the  funds,  should  have  an  iiiilueutial  voice  iu  the  manage- 
ment, such  was  the  blindfold  bigc  try  of  the  larger  moiety  of 
the  native  committee,  that  the  interposition  of  the  Govern- 
ment, even  in  the  mild  form  proposed,  was  at  first  very  stoutly 
resisted.  At  length  the  sober  sense  of  the  smaller  moiety 
prevailed.  The  first  visitor  happened  to  bo  Mr.  Horace 
Hayman  Wilson,  the  famous  Sanscrit  scholar.  It  was  not, 
perhaps,  an  appointment  altogether  congenial  to  his  other 
pursuits,  he  being  thoroughly  wrapped  up  in  Sanscrit  and 
Sanscrit  lore  of  every  sort.  But  still,  as  his  iuQuenco  with  the 
natives  was  deservedly  groat,  he  was  appoiuted  to  the  office ; 
and,  as  an  honourable  man,  he  rigorously  resolved  to  do  his 
duty.  He  very  soon  threw  new  life  into  tho  system,  and  got 
it  very  much  improved;  the  number  of  pupils  soon  also  g.-eatly 
increased,  so  that  altogether  there  was  a  great  deal  of  zeal 
manifested,  and  a  considerable  degree  of  success  attained.  At 
the  same  time,  so  far  as  the  Government  were  concerned,  their 
views  at  the  outset,  with  regard  to  the  best  mode  of  communi- 
cating European  literature  and  science,  were  somewhat  peculiar 
and  contracted ;  in  other  words,  their  views  seemed  to  be  that 
whatever  of  European  literature  and  science  might  be  con- 
veyed to  the  native  mind  should  be  conveyed  chiefly  through 
native  media,  that  is  to  say,  the  learned  languages  of  India — 
for  the  Muhammadans,  Arabic  and  Persian ;  and  for  the  Hindoos, 
Sanscrit.  This  was  the  predominant  spirit  and  intent  of  the 
British  Government." 

The  college,  which  had  upwards  of  a  hundred 
students  and  an  endowment  of  £15,000  on  Duff's 
arrival,  lost  all  its  capital  in  the  commercic'l  collapse 


I02  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1830. 

whicli  occurred  soon  after.  Then,  too,  perished  the 
Calcutta  School  Society,  established  about  the  same 
time  and  on  the  same  principles  intolerant  of  Chris- 
tianity. Its  committee  had,  in  1823,  opened  an  English 
school  as  a  feeder  to  the  college,  >n  which  it  maintained 
thirty  free  students  out  of  one  hundred  and  twenty 
in  atteudauce  in  1829.  The  object  was  the  then 
far-sighted  one  of  encouraging  the  purely  vernacular 
schools,  in  which  the  public  subscriptions  were  more 
beneficially  used,  to  train  their  pupils  well  in  Bengalee 
before  drafting  them  into  English  classes.  But  the 
fifth  report  of  that  society,  and  the  official  investiga- 
tions of  Mr.  Adam  soon  after,  show  that  there  were  not 
more  than  five  thousand  native  children  at  school  in  the 
whole  city  of  Calcutta  when  Duff  landed.  Not  more 
than  five  hundred  of  these  learned  English,  and  that 
after  the  straitest  sect  of  secularists  of  the  Tom  Paine 
stamp.  Such  was  the  educational  destitution  of  Cal- 
cutta, low  and  high,  seventeen  years  after  the  Olapham 
philanthropists  had,  through  Parliament,  forced  the 
Court  of  Directors  to  promise  to  educate  the  natives. 

Outside  of  Calcutta  the  few  missionaries  had  made 
somewhat  fitful  attempts  to  use  English  as  the  best 
medium  for  the  conveyance  of  truth.  A  Hindoo  who 
was  "  almost  a  Christian,"  Jeynarain  Ghosal,  in  1814 
left  20,000  rupees  to  found  that  college  in  Benares  which 
tlif  Church  Missionary  Society  still  conducts  so  well. 
In  the  same  year,  at  Chinsurah,  the  London  Missionary 
Society's  agent,  Mr.  May,  opened  a  high  school,  which 
received  the  first  grant-in-aid.  Helped  by  Rammohun 
Roy  and  Dwarkanath  Tagore,  Dr.  Marshman  estab- 
lished many  native  schools  in  1816  ;  but  it  was  in  1818 
that  the  great  college  of  the  Serampore  missionaries 
was  projected  to  do  on  the  Christian  sido  what  the 
Calcutta  Hindoos  were  attempting  on  the  purely 
secular.    Ur Happily,  that  was  not  in  Calcutta.     There 


yEt.  24.  THE    WORK    OP    DESTIIUCI'ION    BEGUN.  IO3 

sattee,  infanticido,  and  tlio  clicking  of  the  dyln;^  with 
Ganges  mud  were  as  common  as  in  the  time  of 
its  apostate  founder,  Job  Charnock.  Mr.  G.  Pcarce, 
who  landed  there  three  years  before  Duff,  as  a  mis- 
sionary of  the  Baptist  society,  was  even  then  required 
to  report  himself  to  the  police  and  to  make  oath  that 
he  would  behave  himself  peaceably.  Sunday  was  blot- 
ted out  of  the  calendar.  Caste  and  idolatry  revelled 
under  the  protection  of  the  Company.  Human  sacri- 
fices and  Thug  murder  by  strangling  were  common. 
Only  four  societies,  represented  by  a  dozen  foreign 
missionaries,  were  at  work  in  Calcutta  and  all  Bengal : 
— the  Baptist,  the  London,  the  Church,  and  the  Orissa 
General  Baptist.  In  1827  there  were  only  nine  Baptist 
and  half  a  dozen  Anglican  converts  in  all  Calcutta,  and 
of  these  but  a  portion  were  Hindoos,  and  one  had 
been  a  Muhammadan.  This  was  the  fruit  of  ten  years' 
labour. 

Thus  far  the  work  of  destruction  had  beQ:un,  and 
Hindoo  hands  hrd  been  the  first  to  try  to  pull  down 
their  Dagon  of  falsehood,  while  Government  officials 
had  been  active,  more  or  less  unconsciously,  in  prop- 
ping it  up.  The  Bengalees,  beginning  to  leave  even 
the  glimmering  and  reflected  light  of  natural  religion 
as  embodied  in  the  varied  concrete  of  their  own 
system,  were  groping  in  the  still  darker  region  whero 
all  was  doubt,  where  the  old  was  gone  and  nothing 
had  taken  its  place.  Who  was  to  arrest  the  demoral- 
ization ?  Who  could  so  guide  the  fermenting  process 
as  to  w^ork  into  the  mass  the  leaven  which  is  slowly 
leavening  the  whole  lump  ?  AVho  should  begin  the 
work  of  construction  side  by  side  w^itli  that  of  a  dis- 
integration such  as  even  the  nihilists  of  the  Hindoo 
College  had  not  dared  to  dream  of? 


CHAPTER  V. 

1830-1831. 
TEE   MINE   PBEPABED. 

Preliminary  Researches. — DuflF's  first  Interview  with  Carey. — They 
Agree  as  to  the  best  System  of  Aggression  on  Hindooism. — That 
System  confirmed  by  Experience.  —  Preparing  tne  Mine  and 
Setting  the  Train. — The  Bible  the  Base  and  Crown  of  the  System. 
— Why  Previous  Attempts  Failed. — Buchanan's  Christian  In- 
stitution in  tlie  East. — Serampore  College. — Bishop's  College  and 
Dr.  Mill's  Sanscrit  Christiad. —  All  Providential  Advantages 
centred  in  Duff. — His  Bengalee  Ally,  the  Raja  Rammohun  Roy, 
the  Erasmus  of  Hindooism. — The  Brumho  Sobha  and  Dharma 
Sobha. — Dufi"s  Treatment  of  Rammohun  different  from  that  by 
Dr.  Marshman. — The  Theist  finds  for  the  Christian  a  School  and 
five  Pupils. — The  first  Day. — The  Lord's  Prayer  and  the  Gospels 
in  Bengalee. — Opposition  of  the  other  Missionaries. — Dufi"  teach- 
ing the  English  Alphabet.  —  Contemporaneous  teaching  of 
Bengalee  and  English.  —  Removes  to  College  Square.  — First 
Public  Examination  of  the  School  converts  all  Oppocents. — 
Branch  Institution  at  Takee. — A  new  Educational  Era  in  India. — 
Rev.  W.  S,  Mackay  joins  Duff. — Letter  introducing  Rammohun 
Roy  to  Dr.  Chalmers. — Story  of  an  English  Adventurer. — Dufi" 
the  first  to  teach  Political  Economy  in  India. — The  Home  Com- 
mittee remonstrate,  confounding  it  with  Politics. 

With  the  exliaustless  energy  which  marked  his  whole 
life,  Alexander  Duff  spent  the  hottest  and  wettest 
period  of  the  Bengal  year,  the  six  weeks  from  the 
end  of  May  to  the  middle  of  July,  in  preliminary  in- 
quiries. From  early  morning  till  latest  eve  he  visited 
every  missionary  and  mission  station  in  and  around 
Calcutta,  from  the  southern  villages  on  the  skirts  of 
the  malarious  Soonderbun  forests  to  the  older  settle- 
ments of  the  Dutch  at  Chinsurah  and  the  Danes  at 


ALL  24.  BUFF* a    FIJiST    MEliTINQ    WJTH   CAREY.  IO5 

Serampore,  There  was  not  a  school  which  he  did  not 
inspect ;  not  one  of  those  thatched  bamboo  and  wicker- 
work  chapels,  in  which  apostolic  men  like  Lacroix 
preached  night  and  morning  in  Bengalee  to  the  passers- 
by  in  the  crowded  thoroughfares  of  the  capital,  in  which 
he  did  not  spend  hours  noting  the  people  and  the 
preaching  alike.  For  he  had  at  once  begun  that  study 
of  the  vernacular  without  which  half  his  knowledge  of 
and  sympathy  with  the  natives  must  have  been  lost. 
He  was  especially  careful  to  visit  in  detail  represen- 
tative rural  villages,  that  he  might  satisfy  himself  and 
the  committee.  From  such  minute  investigations,  and 
from  frequent  conferences  with  the  more  experienced 
men  already  in  the  field,  h©  arrived  at  two  conclu- 
sions. These  were,  that  Calcutta  itself  must  be  the 
scene  of  his  earliest  and  principal  efforts,  from 
which  he  could  best  operate  on  the  interior ;  and  that 
the  method  of  his  operations  must  be  different  from 
that  of  all  his  predecessors  in  India. 

With  one  exception  the  other  missionaries  discour- 
aged these  two  conclusions.  He  had  left  to  the  last 
the  aged  Carey,  then  within  three  years  of  the  close  of 
the  brightest  of  missionary  careers  up  to  that  time,  in 
order  that  he  might  lay  his  wh(  >  case  before  the  man 
whose  apostolic  successor  he  was  to  be,  even  as  Carey 
had  carried  on  the  continuity  from  Schwartz  and  the 
baptism  of  the  first  Protestant  convert  in  1707. 
Landing  at  the  college  ghaut  one  sweltering  July 
day,  the  still  ruddy  Highlander  strode  up  to  the  flight 
of  steps  that  leads  to  the  finest  modern  building  in 
Asia.  Turning  to  the  left,  he  sought  the  study  of 
Carey  in  the  house — "  built  for  angels  "  said  one,  so 
simple  is  it — where  the  greatest  of  missionary  scholars 
was  still  working  for  India.  There  he  beheld  what 
seemed  to  be  a  little  yellow  old  man  in  a  white  jacket, 
who  tottered  up  to  the  visitor  of  whom  he  had  already 


I06  LIFE    OF   DR.   DUFF.  1830 

often  heard,  and  with  outstretched  hands  solemnly 
blessed  hira,  A  contemporary  soon  after  wrote  thus 
of  the  childlike   saint — 

"  Thou^rt  in  our  hearts — with  tresses  thin  and  grey, 
And  eye  that  knew  the  Book  of  Life  so  well. 
And  brow  serene,  as  thou  wci-t  wont  to  stray 
Amidst  thy  flowers,  like  Adam  ere  he  fell." 

The  result  of  the  conference  was  a  double  blessing, 
for  Carey  could  speak  with  the  influence  at  once  of  a 
scholar  who  had  created  the  best  college  at  that  time 
in  the  country,  and  of  a  vernacularist  who  had  preached 
to  the  people  for  half  a  century.  The  young  Scots- 
man left  his  presence  with  the  approval  of  the  one 
authority  whose  opinion  was  best  worth  having.  The 
meeting,  as  Duff  himself  once  described  it  to  us,  was 
the  beginning  of  an  era  in  the  history  of  the  Church 
of  India  which  the  poet  and  the  painter  might  well 
symbolize. 

Though  for  two  years  the  Kirk's  committee  han- 
kered after  station  in  the  interior,  we  may  at  once 
dismiss  the  decision  to  begin  first  at  Calcutta.  But 
the  determination,  confirmed  by  all  he  had  seen 
and  heard,  to  open  an  English  school,  in  time  to  be 
developed  into  a  college  different  from  any  then  in 
existence,  and  yet  only  the  nucleus  of  a  great  spiritual 
campaign  against  Hindooism,  proved  too  fruitful  in  its 
consequences  to  be  merely  stated. 

Duff's  object  was,  in  the  strength  of  God  and  the 
intensity  of  a  faith  that  '.  irned  even  more  brightly  to 
his  dying  hour,  nothing  less  than  the  destruction  of  a 
system  of  beliefs,  life,  and  ancient  civilization  of  the 
highest  type,  based  on  a  great  literature  expressed  in 
the  most  elaborate  language  the  world  has  seen.  Up 
to  that  time,  missionaries  in  the  less  Hindooized  south 
of  India  had  been  at  work  for  more  than  a  century,  and 


^t.  24.  HIS   MISSIONARY   TOLICY.  IO7 

Lad  been  driven  to  evangelize  the  non-Bralimanical 
tribes.  The  system  remained  untouched — nay,  re- 
mains so  to  the  present  day,  according  to  the  most 
scholarly  authority,  Mr.  Burnell.*  In  the  coast  settle- 
ments of  Eastern  and  Western  India,  after  some  twenty 
years'  labour  a  few  missionaries  had  detached  a  few 
units  from  the  mass  by  ill-taught  vernacular  schools 
generally  under  heathen  masters,  and  by  addressing 
fluctuating  and  promiscuous  groups  in  the  streets  and 
villages  amid  the  contempt  of  the  learned  and  the  scorn 
of  the  respectable  classes.  Up  to  that  time  the  converts 
had  not  only  been  few,  but  their  new  fuitli  liad  not 
been  st  r-propagating.  It  had  died  out  with  them. 
Of  the  hundreds  of  Kiernander's  converts  during  his 
long  work  in  Calcutta  Simeon's  chaplains  found  hardly 
a  trace,  so  that  the  biographer  of  Thomas, f  the  surgeon 
who  brought  Carey  to  Bengal,  doubts  their  existence. 
Of  the  tens  brought  over  by  the  evangelical  clergy  of 
whom  Martyn  was  the  type  the  earlier  missionaries 
found  none.  The  first  fact  forced  on  Duff  was,  that,  as 
against  the  Brahmanized  Hindoos,  the  prevailing  mis- 
sionary method  had  failed  both  in  immediate  results  and 
in  self-developing  power.  The  logical,  if  also  anti- 
spiritual  conclusion,  was  undoubtedly  that  of  the  Abbe 
Dubois,  who  knew  no  other  method — that  it  was  impos- 
sible to  convert  the  Hindoos,  and  needless  to  try. 

Long  after  that  time  we  have  heard  the  greatest 
vernacular  preacher  Bengal  has  seen,  Dufi''s  dear  friend, 
Lacroix,  confess  that  during  fifty  years  he  did  not 
know  that  he  had  been  the  means  of  making  one 
convert  from  Hindooism.  And  so  recently  as  this 
year  an  equally  typical  missionary  to  Islam,  the  Rev. 
T.  P.  Hughes,  warns  us  that  there  is  very  little,  if  any, 

*  See  Academy  for  Dec.  28fch,  1878,  page  G04. 
t  The  Life  of  John  Thomas,  First  Baptist  Missionary  to  Bengal,  by 
C.  B.  Lewis.     London,  1873. 


Io8  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1830. 

analogy  between  street  preaehing  in  England  and  in 
an  Indian  city.  **  There  the  evangelist  stands  up  not 
as  a  recognised  religious  teacher,  and  the  doctrinal 
terms  he  uses  will  either  seem  strange  to  the  ears  of  his 
listeners,  or  will  convey  a  meaning  totally  at  variance  to 
the  one  he  wishes  to  impart.  But  in  private  interviews 
the  evangelist  stands  face  to  face,  eye  to  eye,  and  heart 
to  heart  with  the  opponent  or  the  inquirer,  and  can 
speak  as  one  fallen  sinner  should  speak  to  another. 
There  is  a  chord  of  sympathy  in  such  meetings  which  is 
not  to  be  found  in  the  public  market-place,  and  it  needs 
but  the  touch  of  love  and  the  power  of  God's  Spirit  to 
awaken  its  emotions  !  "*  Still  stronger  and  yet  more 
sensitive  and  true  is  that  chord  when  it  is  in  the  heart 
of  ingenuous  and  grateful  youth,  and  day  after  day  in 
the  class-room,  and  night  after  night  in  the  enthusiasm 
of  the  lecture-room  or  in  the  heavenly  contagion  of 
the  secret  conversation,  the  miesionary  plays  upon  it 
with  the  art  of  the  Master  in  the  synagogue  or  by  the 
well,  and  in  the  oft-frequented  places  by  the  sea-shore 
or  on  the  hill-side. 

We  have  Duff's  own  statement  of  his  divine  strategy 
when,  ten  years  afterwards,  he  told  the  people  of 
Scotland,  "  In  this  way  we  thought  not  of  individuals 
merely ;  we  looked  to  the  masses.  Spurning  the  no- 
tion of  a  present  day's  success,  and  a  present  year's 
wonder,  we  directed  our  view  not  merely  to  the  pre- 
sent but  to  future  generations."  Admitting  the  pro- 
priety of  the  direct  policy  adopted  by  his  fellow- 
labourers  of  every  sect  in  other  circumstances,  he 
thus  "joyfully  hailed"  them  :  "While  you  engage  in 
directly  separating  as  many  precious  atoms  from  the 
mass  as  the  stubborn  resistance  to  ordinary  appliances 
can  admit,  tve  shallj  with  the  blessing  of  God^  devote  our 

*  The  Church  Missionary  Intelligencer  for  January,  1879. 


iEt.  24.  THE  BIBLE  THE  CENTRE  OF  EDUCATIONAL  MISSIONS.    I09 

time  and  strength  to  the  preparing  of  a  mine,  and  the 
setting  of  a  train  which  shall  one  day  explode  and  tear 
up  the  whole  from  its  loioest  depths^  So  Jolm  Wilson 
reasoned  on  independent  grounds,  and  acted  on  de- 
tailed plans  adapted  to  Western  India.  So,  as  against 
the  Brahmanical  and  Muhammadan  systems,  all  tlie 
Protestant — now  the  only  aggressive — missions  in 
Northern  India,  have  gradually  come  to  do.  In  this 
sense,  education,  saturated  with  the  Bible,  became  the 
most  evangelical  and  evangelistic  agency  ever  adopted 
against  the  ancient  Aryan  faiths. 

When  reviewing  this  period  in  the  last  weeks  of  his 
life,  Duff  declared  that  he  was  resolutely  determined 
on  this  one  thing  :  Whatever  scheme  of  instruction 
he  might  adopt  must  involve  the  necessity  of  read 
ing  some  portion  of  the  Bible  daily  by  every  class 
that  could  read  it,  and  of  expounding  it  to  such  as 
could  not,  with  a  view  to  enlightening  the  understand- 
ing, spiritually  impressing  the  heart  and  quickening 
the  conscience,  while  the  teacher  prayed,  at  the  same 
time,  that  the  truth  might  be  brought  home,  by  the 
grace  of  the  Spirit,  for  the  real  conversion  to  God  of 
at  least  some  of  them.  As  he  read  Scripture  and  the 
history  of  the  Church,  he  did  not  expect  that  all  or 
the  majority  of  these  Bengalee  youths  would  certainly 
be  thus  turned,  for  in  nominal  Christendom  he  felt 
that  few  have  been,  or  are,  so  changed  under  the  most 
favourable  circumstances.  That  '*  many  are  called  but 
few  chosen,'*  however,  only  quickened  his  zeal.  But 
he  did  expect  that,  if  the  Bible  were  thus  faithfully 
taught  or  preached,  some  at  least  would  be  turned 
from  their  idols  to  serve  the  living  God. 

While  religion  was  thus  to  be  in  the  forefront,  his 
resolution  was,  from  the  first,  to  teach  every  variety  of 
useful  knowledge,  first  in  elementary  forms,  and,  as  the 
pupils  advanced,  in  the  higher  branches,  which  might 


no  LIFE   OP   DR.    DUFF.  1830. 

ultimately  embrace  tlio  most  advanced  and  improved 
studies  in  history,  civil  and  sacred,  sound  litera- 
ture, logic,  mental  and  moral  pliilosopliy  after  the 
Baconian  method,  mathematics  in  all  departments, 
with  natural  history,  natural  philosopliy  and  other 
sciences.  In  short,  the  design  of  the  first  of  Scot- 
tish missionaries  was  to  lay  the  foundation  of  a  system 
of  education  which  might  ultimately  embrace  all  the 
branches  ordinarily  taught  in  the  higher  schools  and 
colleges  of  Christian  Europe,  but  in  inseparable  com- 
bination with  the  Christian  faith  and  its  doctrines, 
precepts  and  evidences,  with  a  view  to  the  practical 
regulation  of  life  and  conduct.  Religion  was  thus 
intended  to  be,  not  merely  the  foundation  upon 
which  the  superstructure  of  all  useful  knowledge  was 
to  be  reared,  but  the  animating  spirit  which  ivas  to 
pervade  and  hallow  all^  and  thus  conduce  to  the 
highest  welfare  of  man  in  time  and  for  eternity,  as 
well  as  to  the  glory  of  God.  These  sentiments  he  was 
wont  to  inculcate  in  the  case  of  all  whom  he  consulted 
on  the  subject  at  that  time.  All  truth,  directed  by 
the  two-edged  sword  of  the  Yery  word  of  God,  was 
that  which  was  to  pierce  to  the  vitals  of  Brahman- 
ism,  save  the  Hindoo  people,  and  make  them  in- 
struments of  truth  to  the  rest  of  Asia,  even  more 
widely  than  their  Buddhist  fathers  had  sought  to  be. 

Wherein  did  this  differ  from  previous  attempts? 
"When,  on  the  24th  June,  1806,  Dr.  Claudius  Buchanan, 
fruit  of  the  Cambuslang  revival,  looked  back  on  the 
horrors  of  Jugganath  worship  from  an  eminence  on 
the  pleasant  banks  of  the  Chilka  Lake,  he  projected 
*'  xhe  Christian  Institution  in  the  East,"  which,  "  being 
fostered  by  Britain,  my  Christian  country,  might  grad- 
ually undermine  this  baleful  idolatry,  and  put  out  the 
merftory  of  it  for  ever."  This  was  to  be  a  catholic  col- 
lege for  translating  the  Bible  into  the  oriental  tongues 


JEt.  2^.  FAILURU   OF    PREVIOUS   COLLEGES.  Ill 

by  planting  a  professor  in  every  province  with  a  lan- 
guage and  literature  of  its  own,  to  report  on  both  and 
to  teach  the  natives  printing.  So  far  as  that  was  not 
premature,  it  was  being  done  by  the  immortal  three  of 
Serampore,  who  refused  to  impede  their  own  organ- 
ization by  this  untried  project.  Buchanan  thereupon 
turned  himself  to  the  creation  of  the  ecclesiastical  estab- 
lishment of  a  bishop,  three  archdeacons,  and  more 
numerous  chaplains.  Just  as  Buchanan  had  looked  to 
Jews  and  Armenians  as  his  best  missionaries,  the  men 
who  made  the  great  stride  of  establishing  the  Seram- 
pore College  depended  on  Eurasians  or  Christians 
born  in  the  country.  Nobly  did  their  agents  work, 
from  Ava  to  Peshawur ;  but  here;  too,  there  was  no 
self -development  in  the  system.  The  distance  of  tlio 
college  from  Calcutta  shut  it  out  "rom  taking  its  place 
as  the  counteractive  of  the  false  philosophy  and  im- 
pure literature  taught  by  the  Hindoo  College. 

When  ecclesiastical  rivalry  stirred  up  Bishop  Middle- 
ton  to  erect  of  his  college,  he  made  the  same  mistake. 
He  pictured  a  second  grove  of  Academe,  in  which — 
that  is,  in  the  neighbouring  avenues  of  the  Botanic  Gar- 
den— the  professors  and  students  would  walk,  but  he 
left  the  sweltering  class-rooms  and  debating  societies 
of  the  Chitpore  quarter  of  Calcutta  to  atheism  and 
Voltaire.  Hence,  the  only  good  fruit  of  the  vast  ex- 
pense lavished  to  this  day  on  Bishop's  College  has 
been  the  Christa  Sangita,  the  Christian  epic  in  Sans- 
crit of  the  learned  Dr.  Mill,  its  first  principal.  What 
one  of  the  early  missionaries,  who  shared  the  dream, 
wrote  in  1844  is  still  true  :  *'  Sure  I  am,  that  if  sainted 
spirits  can  weep.  Bishop  Middleton  is  now  weeping  iu 
heaven  over  the  idol  of  his  heart."*     Men  make  sys- 

*  Sketches  of  Christianity  in  North  India,  by  tho  Rev.  M.  Wilkin- 
son.    London,  1844. 


112  LIFE    OP   DR.    DUFF,  1830. 

tems,  and  some  men  can  work  in  spito  of  systems 
doomed  to  failure.  Duff  might  have  in  time  trans- 
formed even  Bishop's  College,  for  its  two  fundamental 
objects  were  to  raise  native  preachers  and  teachers, 
and  to  teach  "  the  elements  of  useful  knowledge  and 
the  English  language  to  Muhammadans  and  Hindoos." 
But  it  was  more  than  a  fortunate,  it  was  a  directly 
providential  combination  of  circumstances,  which  cul- 
minated in  the  Scottish  evangelization  of  the  Hindoos 
by  education.  These  were,  the  sermon  of  Dr.  Inglis  in 
1818 ;  the  call  of  Alexander  Duff  in  1828 ;  his  wise 
independence  and  his  wiser  disobedience  of  the  only 
command  laid  upon  him ;  his  unrivalled  educational 
experience  as  well  as  spiritual  energy ;  the  revolution 
in  belief  and  opinion  begun  by  the  Hindoo  College ;  the 
official  toleration  and  personal  friendship  shown  by 
the  Governor-General ;  and,  lastly,  that  to  which  we 
now  come,  the  help  of  the  one  Hindoo  whom  English 
teaching  had  led  to  find  the  living  God. 

In  a  pleasant  garden  house  in  the  leafy  suburbs  of 
Calcutta,  the  Raja  Rammohun  Roy,  then  fifty-six  years 
of  age,  was  spending  his  declining  days  in  earnest 
meditation  on  divine  truth,  broken  only  by  works  of 
practical  benevolence  among  his  countrymen,  and  soon 
by  preparations  for  that  visit  to  England,  where,  in 
1834,  he  yielded  to  the  uncongenial  climate.  "  You 
must  at  once  visit  the  Raja,"  said  General  Beatson, 
when  Mr.  Duff  presented  his  letter  of  introduction, 
"  and  I  will  drive  you  out  on  an  early  evening." 
Save  by  Duff  himself  afterwards,  justice  has  never 
been  done  to  this  Hindoo  reformer,  this  Erasmus  of 
India.  He  was  early  misunderstood  by  the  Serampore 
missionaries  in  his  own  country,  and  he  was  thus 
driven  into  the  arms  of  the  Unitarians  when  he  was 
lionized  in  Great  Britain.  Had  the  truth-seeking 
Bengalee  and    the   Scottish  apostle   met  when    the 


i^t.  24.  THE    YOUNO    ItAMilOUUN    ROY.  II3 

former  was  yet  young,  Eastern  and  Northern  India 
might  have  been  brought  to  Christ  by  a  Bengalee 
Luther,  greater  than  their  own  Chaitunya,  instead  of 
their  more  earnest  youth  being  kept  from  Ilim  by  the 
Vedic  dreams  of  the  Brumho  Sobha,  and  now  by  the 
vaguG  ethical  naturahsm  of  its  successor,  the  Brumho 
Somaj. 

At  the  close  of  the  administration  of  Warren 
Hastings,  when  the  bleached  bones  of  the  victims 
of  the  great  famine  were  beginning  to  disappear,  in 
1774,  a  Brahman  landholder  and  his  most  orthodox 
wife  had  a  son  born  to  them  on  the  ancestral  estate 
in  the  county  of  Burdwan,  some  fifty  miles  from  the 
English  capital  of  Calcutta.  Rammoliun  Roy's  father 
had  retired  in  disgust  from  the  service  of  the 
tyrant,  Sooraj-ood-Dowla;  his  predecessors  had  been 
holy  ascetics  or  sacerdotal  lords,  till  the  intolerant 
Aurungzeb  forced  one  of  them  to  take  office  at  court. 
Their  spirit,  withdrawing  from  worldly  wealth  and 
distinction,  came  out  in  the  young  Rammohun,  who, 
though  trained  in  all  the  asceticism  of  his  mother's 
breviary,  the  "Ahnika  Tattina,"  renounced  idolatry  at 
the  age  of  sixteen,  when  he  wrote  but  did  not  pub- 
lish an  attack  on  "  the  idolatrous  system  of  the  Hin- 
doos." That  is,  he  gave  up  his  father's  love,  his 
mother's  care  and  his  rights  of  inheritance,  and  he 
braved  the  loss  of  caste  and  the  persecution  of  his 
friends.  To  this  he  had  been  led  by  too  intimate  a 
knowledge  of  the  Bengalee  and  Sanscrit  literature,  in 
his  own  home,  followed  by  a  course  of  Arabic  and  Per- 
sian at  Patna,  and  by  the  study  of  Muhammadanism. 
From  Patna  the  young  and  truth-loving  theist  went 
to  Benares,  where  he  learned  that  the  Brahmanism 
of  his  day  was  a  corruption  of  what  seemed  to  him 
the  monotheism  which  underlay  the  nature-worship  of 
the   Vedas.      Captivated  for   a  time   by   philosophic 

I 


ri4  tilFE    OP  DR.    DUFF.  1830. 

Buddliism,  he  visited  Tibet,  where  its  practical  Lamaio 
form  disgusted  him.  Recalled  by  his  father,  ho  tried 
to  influence  tho  old  man  who  died  in  1803,  and  ho  so 
succeeded  in  convincing  his  motlier  of  the  folly  of  her 
life-long  austerities  that  she  confessed  her  disbelief  in 
Hindooism  before  her  death.  But  he  had  no  Divino 
Saviour  to  reveal  to  her.  The  widow  died  in  the  service 
of  the  idol  Jugganath  at  Pooree,  having  declared  before 
she  set  out  on  the  hideous  pilgrimage :  "  Ramtnohun, 
you  are  right,  but  I  am  a  weak  woman,  and  am  grown 
too  old  to  give  up  rites  which  are  a  comfort  to  me." 

In  a  brief  autobiograpliy  which  ho  wrote  in  England, 
he  states  that  ho  was  about  twenty  when  ho  began  to 
associate  with  Europeans.  *'  Finding  them  generally 
more  intelligent,  more  steady  and  moderate  in  their 
conduct,  I  gave  up  my  prejudice  against  them  and 
became  inclined  in  their  favour,  feeling  persuaded  that 
their  rule,  though  a  foreign  yoke,  would  lead  more 
speedily  8,nd  surely  to  tho  amelioration  of  the  native 
inhabitants." 

Seeking  a  livelihood  in  the  service  of  the  English, 
as  his  fathers  had  done  in  that  of  the  Delhi  emperors 
and  their  Bengal  lieutenant-governors,  Rammohun 
Roy  became  an  example  of  rectitude  to  the  corrupt 
native  officials  who  made  our  name  detested,  and  he 
won  the  friendship  of  his  British  superiors.  At  fifty 
he  retired  to  philosophic  ease  and  spiritual  meditation, 
and  became  the  centre  of  the  Calcutta  reformers.  But 
he  was  far  ahead  of  his  timid  contemporaries,  who 
while  approving  the  better  followed  the  worse.  The 
English  language  had  introduced  him  to  the  English 
Bible,  and  the  necessity  of  mastering  that  led  him  to 
the  original  Hebrew  and  Greek.  It  was  all  eclecticism 
at  first,  tor  he  admired  in  the  law  of  the  Old  and  the 
gospel  of  the  New  Testament  only  the  same  doctrine 
of  the  Adwaita  or  unity  of  God,  which  he  had  held 


yEt.  24.  TUB    BAUIili;!:    VLiDANTIC    WOUSIIir.  II5 

up  to  his  Hindoo  and  Muliammadan  coimtrymon  as 
the  toacliiii;^  of  tlio  Upanisliads  and  tlio  Mosnavi,  till 
they  denounced  liirn  as  na.'ttik  or  atheist.  Of  this  time 
he  afterwards  wrote : — "  Tliis  roused  such  a  feehuGT 
against  me,  tluit  I  was  at  hist  deserted  by  every  person 
except  two  or  three  Scotch  friends,  to  whom  and  the 
nation  to  wliich  they  belong  I  always  feel  grateful." 

In  the  very  year,  ISII-,  in  Avhich  ho  took  up  his 
residence  in  Calcutta,  he  opened  the  Brumho  Sobha, 
in  order  to  teach  and  to  practise  the  worship  of  ono 
supremo  undivided  and  eternal  God.  At  first  in  his 
own  house,  and  then  in  the  thoroughfare  of  Chitporo 
road,  he  and  his  pundits  expounded  in  the  vernacular 
the  purer  teaching  of  the  Vedas,  once  a  week,  but  on 
each  day  of  the  week  in  rotation  in  seven  years.  They 
sang  hymns  to  the  sound  of  drum  (tohlah)  and  cym- 
bals, (momiccrf),  guitar  {tomhiwn)  and  violoncello  {beci' 
Za/i),  such  as  this:  "Ail  is  vain  without  the  blessing 
of  God.  Remember  Ilim  Who  can  deprive  you  of 
wife,  children,  friends,  relatives  and  wealth.  He  is 
the  Supreme,  separate  from  the  triune  deity  (Bruniha, 
Yishnoo  and  Siva) ;  to  Him  belong  no  titles  or  dis- 
tinctions. J.  is  written :  *  Blessed  is  he  whoso  soul 
dwellcth  on  Him.'  "  Again :  **  Thine  own  soul  is 
thine  only  refuge ;  seek  to  cherish  it  in  its  proper 
abode  composed  of  five  elemer^i,  and  guided  by  six 
passions.  Why  dost  thou  distrust  thine  own  soul  ? 
.  .  God  dwelleth  even  in  thine  own  heart."  Christ 
was  shut  out  from  Rammohun  Roy  by  inability  or  un- 
willingness to  believe  His  own  revelation  of  the  Father 
and  promise  of  the  Spirit.  But  he  set  Him,  as  a 
practical  teacher,  far  above  all  others,  when,  in  1820, 
he  published  anonymously  that  chrestomathy  of  the 
synoptic  Gospels  which  he  termed,  "  The  Precepts  of 
Jesus  the  Guide  to  Peace  and  Happiness." 

His  attitude  to  Brahmanism  was  still  that  of  Erasmus 


Il6  LIFE    OF   DR.    DUFF,  1830. 

towards  Roinanism.  He  believed  lie  could  purify  the 
popular  religion  of  its  "  perversion  "  while  falling  back 
on  its  early  purity.  His  attacks  on  idolatry,  his  decla- 
ration of  the  equality  of  all  living  creatures,  without 
distinction  of  caste,  rank,  or  wealth,  under  the  moral 
government  of  God,  and  of  their  duty  to  worship  Him 
according  to  the  most  sacred  mysteries  of  the  Veds, 
roused  at  once  the  superstitious  fear  and  the  aristo- 
cratic selfishness  of  the  orthodox  families.  They  met 
the  Brumho  Sobha  by  instituting  the  Dharma  Soblia, 
to  uphold  Brahmanism  and  all  its  consequences,  such 
as  suttee  and  the  denial  of  civil  and  religious  liberty, 
of  property  and  marriage  to  dissidents  from  idolatry. 
Thus  Hindoo  society  became  divided  iuto  opposing 
camps,  while  the  Hindoo  College  youths  formed  a  third 
entrenchment  in  support  of  pure  atheism  and  libertin- 
ism. These  were  the  three  powers  at  work,  unconnected 
by  any  agency  save  the  slow  and  indirect  influence  of 
English  literature  in  the  hands  of  vicious  teachers,  un- 
opposed by  Christianity  in  any  form,  denounced  at 
a  distance,  and  not  once  fairly  grappled  with  by  any 
Christian  man,  from  the  Bishop  to  the  Baptist  mission- 
aries, who  had  been  telegraphed  from  the  Sandheads  as 
"papists"  requiring  the  special  attention  of  the  police. 
The  Serampore  missionaries,  indeed,  had  taken  a  part 
in  the  conflict,  and  their  quarterly  Friend  of  India  had 
given  voice  to  Christ's  teaching  on  all  subjects,  human 
and  divine.  But  they  were  not  on  the  spot ;  and,  as 
we  shall  see,  they  made  the  mistake  of  fighting 
Eamraohun  Roy  instead  of  first  using  him  as  an  ally 
against  the  common  foe,  and  then  educating  him  up 
to  the  revealed  standard.  If  Eammohun  Roy  had 
found  Christ,  what  a  revolution  there  would  have  been 
in  Bengal !  But  God  works  by  His  own  method,  and  He 
Bent  Alexander  DufF  to  its  people  and  its  government, 
when  He  had  thus  prepared  the  Hindoo  to  help  him. 


^Et.   24.  EAMMOHUN   EOY's    SUPPORT.  II7 

Having  listened  to  the  young  Scotsman's  statement 
of  his  objects  and  plans,  Rammohun  Roy  expressed 
general  approval.  All  true  education,  the  reformer 
emphatically  declared,  ought  to  be  religious,  since  the 
object  was  not  merely  to  give  information,  but  to 
develop  and  regulate  all  the  powers  of  the  mind,  the 
emotions  of  the  heart,  and  the  workings  of  the  con- 
science. Though  himself  not  a  Christian  by  profession 
he  had  read  and  studied  the  Bible,  and  declared  that, 
as  a  book  of  reliirious  and  moral  instruction  it  was 
unequalled.  As  a  believer  in  God  he  also  felt  that 
everything  should  be  begun  by  imploring  His  blessing. 
He  therefore  approved  of  the  opening  of  the  proposed 
school  with  prayer  to  God.  Then,  of  his  own  accord, 
he  added  that,  having  studied  the  Vedas,  the  Koran 
and  the  Tripitakas  of  the  Buddhists,  he  nowhere  found 
any  prayer  so  brief  and  all-comprehensive  as  that 
which  Christians  called  the  Lord's  Prayer.  Till,  there- 
fore, Mr.  Duff  had  sufficiently  mastered  the  Bengalee 
and  his  pupils  the  English,  he  recommended  him  to 
study  and  daily  use  the  Lord's  Prayer  in  the  Ben- 
galee or  English,  according  to  circumstances.  But  he 
entirely  approved  of  using  the  English  language,  and 
not  the  Bengalee,  Persian,  Arabic  or  Sanscrit,  for  con- 
veying sound  European  knowledge.  This  led  him  also 
to  remark  that  he  entirely  disapproved  of  Government 
having  established  a  new  Sanscrit  college  in  Calcutta, 
against  which,  at  the  time  of  its  establishment,  he 
solemnly  protested,  on  the  ground  that  instead  of 
thereby  enlightening  the  native  mind  according  to  the 
intention  of  the  British  Parliament,  the  authorities 
were  confirming  it  in  error  and  prejudice,  and  rivet- 
ing upon  it  the  chains  of  darkness.  He  declared  of 
the  Indian  Government  that  it  had  acted  just  as  if 
the  English  Government,  professing  to  enlighten  the 
natives  of  the  British  Isles,  instead  of  setting  up  a 


Il8  LIFE    OP   DE.    DUFF.  1830. 

school  or  college  for  improved  literature,  science,  and 
philosophy,  had  established  a  great  semiuary  for  the 
teaching  of  all  the  scholastic,  legendary,  and  other 
absurdities  of  the  middle  ages. 

"  As  a  youth,"  he  said  to  Mr.  Duff,  "  I  acquired  some 
knowledge  of  the  English  language.  Having  read 
about  the  rise  and  progress  of  Christianity  in  apostolic 
times,  and  its  corruptions  in  the  succeeding  ages, 
and  then  of  the  Christian  Reformation  which  shook  off 
these  corruptions  and  restored  it  to  its  primitive  purity, 
I  began  to  think  tliat  something  similar  might  have 
taken  place  in  India,  and  similar  results  might  follow 
here  from  a  reformation  of  the  popular  idolatry." 
Till  his  study  of  the  Gospels,  Rammohun  Roy  nad  not 
distinguished  between  the  one  universal  entity  of  Pan- 
theism and  the  personal  and  supreme  God  of  Theism. 
When  he  engaged  the  Baptist  missionary,  Mr.  Adam,  to 
teach  him  Greek  and  Hebrew,  he  so  shook  his  tutor's 
faith  in  the  revealed  Trinity  of  Scripture  that  the 
Christian  relinquished  his  office,  became  Editor  of  the 
India  Gazette^  and  was  generally  known  in  Calcutta 
as  **  the  second  fallen  Adam."  Then  came  the  contro- 
versy "with  Serampore.  Christ  had  drawn  Rammohun 
so  far  as  to  a  personal  God  in  the  Christian  sense. 
Had  he,  at  this  stage,  fallen  into  the  hands  of'  a  theo- 
logian of  comprehensive  views  and  wide  sympathies 
with  inquirers  struggling  to  ascertain  truth,  especially 
religious  truth,  in  its  highest  forms,  he  might  have 
been  led  to  realize,  not  merely  the  perfect  humanity 
but  the  Divinity  of  Christ  as  set  forth  in  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  on  their  divine  authority.  Though  the 
nature  of  the  incarnation  and  of  the  Trinity  was  incom- 
p^  ehensible  to  finite  and  spiritually  blinded  reason,  the 
facts  might  have  been  believed  oH  sufficient  authority. 

It  so  happened  that  one  of  the  Serampore  mission- 
aries took  him  up  rather  sharply  from  the  title  of  his 


ALL  24.  RAJA    UAMMOllLFN    ROYS    CllUlSl'lANnT.  1  I9 

pamphlefc,  *'  The  Precepts  of  Jesus  the  Guide  to  Hap- 
piness," wliicli  seemed  to  imply  that  moral  precepts 
alone  are  sufficient  to  attain  to  supreme  felicity.  This 
was  exposed  as  a  system  of  mere  legalism.  Had 
Ranimohun  Roy  been  an  orthodox  Christian,  and,  re- 
linquishing orthodoxy,  he  had  come  to  profess  theism 
and  published  such  a  treatise  with  such  a  title,  it 
would  indubitably  have  been  a  sign  of  his  falling  from 
the  truth.  But  it  was  overlooked  that  he  had  been 
born  and  brought  up  an  idolater,  so  that  to  renounce 
polytheism  in  all  its  forms,  and  attain  to  a  clear  belief 
in  the  existence  of  one  God,  Creator  of  all  things, 
was  an  evidence  of  his  having  made  considerable 
strides  upwards  towards  the  attainment  of  truth.  This 
provoked  him  to  publish  an  elaborate  reply,  which 
again  called  forth  a  rejoinder,  and  that  another  from 
him,  so  that  the  controversy  became  bitter,  and  he  was 
kept  back  from  the  higher  doctrines  of  uhe  Christian 
faith.  Such  was  his  attitude  towards  Christianity  when 
Mr.  Duff  first  made  his  acquaintance  ;  but  he  never  lost 
his  extreme  veneration  for  the  character  of  Jesus  Christ, 
and  his  admiration  of  the  supreme  purity  and  subli- 
mity of  His  moral  teachings.  Subsequently  Mr.  Duff 
and  he  had  many  earnest  and  solemn  discussions  on 
the  subject.  The  testimony  of  John  Foster  shows  that 
this  remarkable  Hindoo  died  believing  in  the  divinity 
of  the  mission  of  Jesus  Christ,  including  His  miracles, 
but  had  not  attained  to  an  assurance  of  the  deity  of 
His  person. 

Greatly  cheered  by  the  emphatic  concurrence  of 
E-ammohun  Roy,  Mr.  Duff  said  the  real  difficulty  now 
was,  where,  or  how,  to  get  a  hall  in  the  native  city 
in  which  to  commence  operations;  for  the  natives, 
owing  to  caste  prejuTlices,  were  absolutely  averse  to 
letting  any  of  their  houses  to  a  European  for  PJuropean 
purposes.     Then,  if  a  suitable  place  could  be  got,  how 


I20  LIFE   OF   DE.    DUFF.  1830. 

could  youths  of  tlio  respectable  classes  be  induced  to 
attend,  since  lie  was  resolved  to  teacli  the  Bible  in  every 
class,  and  he  was  told  that  this  would  constitute  an 
insuperable  objection.  For,  at  that  early  period,  the 
ignorant  Hindoos  regarded  the  Bible  with  something 
like  loathing  and  hatred,  as  the  great  antagonist  of 
their  Shasters  ;  they  were  also  actuated  by  the  super- 
stitious belief  that  to  take  the  Bible  into  their  hands, 
and  read  any  portion  of  it,  would  operate  upon  them 
like  a  magical  spell,  forcing  them  to  become  Christians. 
Rammohun  Roy  at  once  offered  the  small  hall  of  the 
Brumho  Soblia,  in  tlie  Chitpore  road,  for  which  he 
had  been  paying  to  the  five  Brahman  owners  five 
pounds  a  month  of  rental.  The  few  worshippers  were 
about  to  use  a  new  building  which  he  had  himself 
erected  before  leaving  for  England,  with  the  honour 
of  Raja,  on  a  mission  from  the  titular  Emperor  of 
Delhi  to  represent  certain  complaints  against  the  East 
India  Company.  As  to  pupils,  his  personal  friends 
were  sufficiently  free  from  prejudice  to  send  their  sons 
at  his  request.  Driving  at  once  to  the  spot,  the  gener- 
ous Hindoo  reformer  secured  the  hall  for  the  Christian 
missionary  from  Scotland  at  four  pounds  a  month ;  the 
liberal  Dwarkanath  Tagore,  who  also  afterwards  died  in 
England,  being  one  of  the  five  proprietors.  Point- 
ing to  a  punkah  suspended  from  the  roof,  Rammohun 
said  with  a  smile,  "  I  leave  you  that  as  my  legacy." 

After  a  few  days  five  bright-eyed  youths  of  the 
higher  class,  mostly  Brahmanical,  called  upon  Mr.  Duff, 
at  Dr.  Brown's  where  he  still  resided,  with  a  note  of 
introduction  from  Rammohun  Roy  stating  that  these 
five,  with  the  full  consent  of  their  friends,  were  ready 
to  attend  him  whenever  he  might  open  the  school.  One 
of  these,  a  Koolin  named  Khettwr  Mohun  Chatterjee, 
turned  out  a  first-rate  scholar,  entered  the  Govern- 
ment service,   and    attained   to    one  of    the   highest 


JEt.  24.  THE    FIRST   DAY   OF   DUFF's    COLLEGE.  121 

offices  whicli  a  native  could  then  hold.  He  was  long 
greatly  respected  and  trusted  for  his  intelligence  and 
intecrritv.  Havino:  met  in  the  hall  with  the  iive 
on  a  day  appointed,  by  the  aid  of  an  interpreter 
Mr.  Duff  explained  to  thoin,  in  a  general  way,  his  in- 
tentions and  plans.  They  seemed  highly  delighted, 
and  went  away  resolved  to  explain  the  matter  to 
their  friends.  In  a  day  or  two  several  new  youths 
appeared  along  with  them,  requesting  admission. 
On  every  successive  morning  there  was  a  fresh  suc- 
cession of  applicants,  till  classification  and  weeding 
out  became  necessary.  When  that  had  been  done, 
a  day  was  fixed  for  the  public  opening  of  the  school, 
at  ten  a.m.,  when  Rammohun  Roy  was  present  to  ex- 
plain difficulties,  and  especially  to  remove  the  prejudice 
against  reading  the  Bible.  The  eventful  day  was  the 
13th  of  July,  1830. 

Having  been  meanwhile  busy  with  Bengalee,  having 
obtained  from  the  Bible  Society's  depository  copies 
of  the  four  Gospels  in  Bengalee  and  English,  and 
having  borrowed  some  English  primers  from  the 
Eurasian  teacher  of  an  adventure  school,  Mr.  Duff  was 
ready.  Standing  up  with  Rammohun  Roy,  while  all  the 
lads  showed  the  same  respect  as  their  own  Raja,  the 
Christian  missionary  prayed  the  Lord's  Prayer  slowly 
in  Bengalee.  A  sight,  an  hour,  ever  to  be  remem- 
bered !  Then  came  the  more  critical  act.  Himself 
putting  a  copy  of  the  Gospels  into  their  hands, 
the  missionary  requested  some  of  the  older  pupils 
to  read.  Thor^  was  murmuring  among  the  Brah- 
mans  among  them,  and  this  found  voice  in  the 
Bengalee  protest  of  a  leader — "  This  is  the  Christian 
Shaster.  We  are  not  Christians  ;  how  then  can  we  read 
it  ?  It  may  make  us  , Christians,  and  our  friends  will 
drive  us  out  of  caste."  Now  was  the  time  for  Ram- 
mohun Roy,  who  explained  to  his  young  countrymen 


122  LIFE    OF    DR.    DUFP.  1830. 

that  they  were  mistaken.  "  Christians,  like  Dr.  Horace 
Hayman  Wilson,  have  studied  the  Hindoo  Shasters, 
and  you  know  that  he  has  not  become  a  Hindoo.  I 
myself  have  read  all  the  Koran  again  and  again,  and 
has  that  made  me  a  Mussulman  ?  Nay,  I  have 
studied  the  whole  Bible,  and  you  know  I  am  not  a 
Christian.  Why,  then,  do  you  fear  to  read  it  ?  Read 
and  judge  for  yourself.  Not  compulsion,  but  enlight- 
ened persuasion  which  you  may  resist  if  you  choose, 
constitutes  you  yourselves  judges  of  the  contents  of 
the  book."  Most  of  the  remonstrants  seemed  satisfied. 
Daily  for  the  next  month  did  the  Hindoo  reformer 
visit  the  school  at  ten  for  the  Bible  lesson,  and  fre- 
quently thereafter  till  he  left  for  England,  when  his 
eldest  son  continued  to  encourage  the  boys  by  his 
presence  and  their  teacher  by  his  kindly  counsel.  But 
all  the  Christian  missionaries  kept  aloof  when  they 
did  not  expostulate  with  the  young  teacher,  whoso 
weapon  of  English  seemed  to  them  as  unbiblical  as 
his  alliance  with  the  author  of  "  The  Precepts  of 
Jesus  "  was  unholy.  In  vain  did  Duff  reiterate  to 
them  his  leading  object,  which  was,  by  proper  culture, 
to  awaken,  develop,  stimulate  and  direct  the  various 
powers  and  susceptibilities  of  the  human  mind,  and 
for  this  end  to  employ  the  English  language  as  the 
most  effective  instrument ;  to  imbue  the  whole  know- 
ledge thus  imparted  with  the  spirit  of  true  religion ; 
and  at  the  same  time  to  devote  daily  a  portion  of  time 
in  every  class  to  the  systematic  study  of  the  Bible 
itself — not  in  the  way  of  formal  scholastic  exercise, 
but  of  devotional  and  instructive  study,  not  merely 
with  a  view  to  intellectual  illumination  but  with  a  view 
also,  by  the  advocacy  of  the  grace  of  God's  Spirit,  to 
the  conversion  of  the  soul  to  God.  It  was  vain  for 
him  thus  to  show  that  if  what  is  ordinarily  called 
secular  useful  knowledge  should  be  largely  commuui- 


JEt.  24.         OPPOSITION    OF   THE    EARLY    MISSIONARIES.  1 23 

cated.  that  would  be  in  inseparable  alliance  with  divine 
truth.  It  was  vain  for  him  to  state  that  he  not  only 
did  not  disapprove,  but  on  the  contrary  wholly  approved 
of  tlioir  modes  of  operation,  as  probably  the  only  means 
which  at  an  early  stage  could  be  practised.  In  the  then 
Imckward  state  of  things  these,  ho  said,  were  carried  on 
under  great  disadvantages  and  consequently  compara- 
tive ineflQciency  ;  still,  as  progress  advanced,  the  time 
might  come  when  they  could  be  worked  more  effec- 
tively, therefore  his  own  intention  was  to  master  tho 
vernacular  language  with  a  view  to  usefulness  in  vari- 
ous forms  through  that  medium.  It  was  vain  for  him 
to  explain  that  while  the  English  language  would  thus 
be  used  as  the  channel  of  conveying  all  higher  and  im- 
proved knowledge,  he  was  determined  that  the  vernac- 
ular should  be  thoroughly  taught  to  the  pupils  at  the 
same  time,  as  a  channel  of  distribution  for  the  masses. 
The  other  missionaries  constantly  harped  on  this  fact, 
that  many  of  the  low  natives  in  Calcutta  sought  a  smat- 
tering of  English  only  to  carry  on  dealings  with  the 
sailors,  whom  they  allured  to  low  taverns,  there  to 
revel  in  all  manner  of  wickedness,  contriving  at  tho 
same  time  to  rob  them  of  what  money  they  possessed, 
and  often  even  stripping  them  of  their  clothes,  and 
throwing  them  into  the  street  to  be  taken  up  by  the 
police.  English  had  thus  come  to  be  in  bad  odour  with 
the  early  missionaries,  as  regarded  these  low  caste 
natives  on  the  one  hand,  and  its  apparent  effect  in 
leading  the  children  of  the  better  class  natives  into  the 
wildest  infidelity. 

With  :'egard  to  the  natives  who  wished  to  learn 
English  for  such  purposes,  Mr.  Duff's  reply  was  that, 
even  on  the  low  ground  of  the  principles  of  political 
economy,  he  would  soon  by  th^  multiplication  of  these 
overstock  the  market,  and  make  it  necessary  for  those 
who  wished  to  obtain  better  positions  to  remain  longer 


124  ^^^^    t)F   DR.    DUFF.  1830. 

at  scliool,  SO  as  to  gain  a  liiglior  degree  of  knowledge, 
wliich  might  not  only  enlarge  the  intellect  but  regu- 
late the  morals  and  manners.  With  regard  to  the 
children  of  the  higher  classes,  his  trust  was  that  the 
thorough  inculcation  of  God's  word,  with  prayer, 
would  have  the  effect  of  preventing  them  from  becom- 
ing utter  unbelievers  or  atheists,  and  in  all  respects 
make  them  better  men  and  members  of  society,  even  if 
they  did  not  outwardly  and  formally  embrace  the 
Christian  faith.  On  the  evening  before  the  day  of 
opening  the  school,  one  of  the  missionaries,  who  had 
become  his  dearest  friend,  came  to  his  house  vehe- 
mently to  expostulate  with  him  at  the  eleventh  hour. 
When  his  friend  saw  that  he  could  make  no  impression 
on  the  far-seoing  Scotsman,  he  rose,  and,  shaking  him 
by  the  hand,  looked  imploringly  in  his  face,  saying 
that  he  was  sorely  grieved  that  his  coming  to  India 
might,  by  the  course  he  intended  to  pursue,  prove  a 
curse  rather  than  a  blessing.  The  simple  remonstrant 
exclaimed,  as  a  parting  shot,  "You  will  deluge  Cal- 
cutta with  rogues  and  villains." 

The  school  thus  fairly  started,  let  us  look  at  its 
founder  at  work.  The  student  who  had  passed  out 
of  St.  Andrews  University  its  first  scholar,  its  most 
brilliant  essayist,  its  most  eloquent  debater;  the 
preacher  whose  fervent  utterances  had  thrilled  the 
coldest  assemblies  by  addresses  which  promised  a  rival 
to  Chalmers  himself,  and  were  afterwards  hardly  ex- 
celled by  Edward  Irving's ;  the  man  who  had  been 
the  stay  and  the  counsellor  of  all  on  board  the  two 
wrecked  vessels,  is  doing — what  ?  Destitute  of  assis- 
tants, save  an  untrained  Eurasian  lad,  and  despised 
by  his  brother  missionaries,  he  is  spending  six  hours 
a  day  in  teaching  some  three  hundred  Bengalee  youths 
the  English  alphabet,  and  many  an  hour  at  night  in 
preparing  a  series  of  graduated  school-books,  named 


ALl  24.  WIIITINO  PRIMERS  AND  TEACniNQ  TUE  ALl'UADET.    I  25 

*'  Instructors,"  which  held  their  place  in  every  Chris- 
tian English  school  in  Bengal  for  the  tliird  of  a 
century.  Men,  wise  in  their  own  narrow  sphere  and 
unable  to  conipreliend,  because  unwilling  to  study, 
circumstances  so  dillerent  as  those  of  the  educated 
Hindoos,  ask  if  tlie  powers  of  a  minister  of  the  gospel 
are  to  be  degraded  by  such  work?  Yet  without  tluit 
sowing  of  seed  the  great  tree  would  still  have  to  be 
planted.  Without  tliat  humility.  Duff  wojild  have 
been  like  the  average  of  his  fellows,  whoso  incon- 
derate  short-sightedness  was  soon  turned  into  admir- 
ation and  then  imitation.  It  was  the  genius  of 
Duff,  sanctified  by  the  purest  self-sacrifice,  that  led 
him  to  begin  thus,  as  his  Master  taught,  in  the  spirit 
of  a  little  child. 

His  school-books  were  constructed  on  a  system. 
The  first  contained  lessons  on  interesting  common 
subjects,  in  which  the  pupils  might  be  drilled  not 
only  in  reading  but  in  grammatical  and  other  exer- 
cises. The  second  consisted  of  religious  lesions, 
taken  for  the  most  part  from  the  Jiiblo  itself, — 
especially  the  historical  portions,  and  put  into  forms 
adapted  to  the  opening  intelligence  of  the  youth. 
These  were  carefully  read,  expounded  and  enforced 
on  the  understanding,  heart  and  conscience,  as  purely 
reliffious  exercises,  without  reference  to  •  construing 
which  would  only  desecrate  the  subject  matter. 

As  to  the  English  alphabet,  which  most  of  the  pupils 
had  to  begin  for  the  first  time,  Dufif  devised  a  plan  for 
teaching  a  large  number  simultaneously.  He  got  a 
board  supported  by  an  upi  ight  frame,  and  along  the 
board  a  series  of  parallel  grooves.  He  then  got  the 
letters  of  the  English  alphabet  painted  on  separate 
slips  of  wood.  Around  this  upright  frame  a  large 
class  was  arranged  in  a  semi-circle.  The  first  letter 
with  which  he  uniformly  began  was  the  letter  "0,'* 


126  ITFB    OP   DE.    DUFF.  1 830. 

because  of  the  simplicity  of  its  form  and  sound,  and 
because  the  sound  and  the  name  are  the  same,  as  is 
the  case  in  Sanscrit  and  Sanscrit-derived  vernacuLirs. 
When  this  letter  was  thoroughly  mastered,  whicli  was 
soon  done,  the  next  letter  which  he  usually  put  into 
one  of  the  grooves  was  "  X."  Ho  would  then 
bring  the  two  letters  together,  and  pronouncing 
them  would  say,  "  0,  X,  0,i'"  lie  then  would  tell 
the  pupils  that  this  was  the  name  in  English  for  an 
animal  with  which  they  were  all  well  acquainted,  and 
would  give  them  the  corresponding  word  in  Bengalee. 
This  always  delighted  them,  as  they  said  they  not 
only  knew  two  letters  of  the  English  alphabet,  but 
had  already  got  hold  of  an  English  word.  So  over- 
joyed they  were  at  this,  that  when  they  went  out 
into  the  street,  and  met  an  ox  pulling  a  native  cart 
(which  they  were  sure  soon  to  do),  they  went  along 
gleefully  shouting  at  the  top  of  their  voice,  "  Ox, 
Ox."  But  the  new  missionarv  was  not  satisfied 
with  giving  the  Bengalee  or  the  English  word.  He 
began  to  question  the  boys  as  to  the  properties 
and  the  uses  of  the  objects,  or  different  parts  of  the 
objects,  whicli  the  word  represented.  This  exercise 
always  delighted  them,  for  it  was  fitted  to  draw 
out  what  information  they  already  possessed,  and  to 
stimulate  the  powers  of  observation.  In  this  way 
the  intellect  was  fairly  awakened,  and  the  boys  de- 
lighted in  thinking  that  they  had  acquired  something 
like  a  now  power  or  faculty.  In  a  word,  they  had 
become  thinking  beings.  The  same  process  of  minute 
interrogation  was  carried  on  in  all  the  classes.  The 
boys,  in  their  exuberance  of  delight,  would  be  con- 
stantly speaking  of  it  to  their  friends  at  home,  to  the 
pupils  of  other  schools,  and  to  acquaintances  whom 
they  might  meet  in  the  street.  In  this  way,  as  well 
as  for  other  reasons,  the  school  soon  acquired  an  ex- 


M.   24.   THE  INTELLECTUAL  METHOD  OF  TEACHING.    1 27 

tensive  popularity  among  the  native  community,  and 
the  pressure  for  admission  increased  fur  beyond  what 
tlie  little  hall  could  accommodate.  In  the  face  of  the 
old  mechanical  and  monotonous  style  of  teaching  then 
universally  prevalent,  this  method  was  felt  to  be  a  real 
novelty.  In  the  course  of  time  it  led  others,  so  far 
as  they  could,  to  imitation,  so  that  ere  long  the  new 
system  was  fairly  initiated  in  most  of  the  Calcutta 
and  in  many  of  the  Bengal  schools.* 

Wo  have  DufTs  own  account  of  the  genesis  of  his 
educational  system,  given  to  the  students  who  had 
been  made  by  it  all  they  became  the  third  of  a  century 
afterwards,  when  he  was  bidding  them  farewell.  Ilis 
method  was  the  same  to  which  John  Wilson  was  led  in 
Bombay.  '*  A  passage  in  the  introduction  to  the  cele- 
brated Lectures  on  Mental  Philosophy  by  the  late  Dr. 
Thomas  Brown,  the  successor  of  the  famous  Dugald 
Stewart,  relative  to  Education  being,  when  properly 
conducted,  the  grandest  practical  application  of  mental 
science,  first  drew  my  attention,  theoretically,  while 
yet  a  student,  to  the  real  philosophical  basis  of  a  sound 
and  enlightened  education.  A  personal  inspection,  at  a 
much  later  period,  of  the  Edinburgh  Sessional  School, 
then,  in  the  absence  of  Normal  schools,  the  most  re- 
nowned in  the  kingdom,  showed  me  what  the  intel- 
lectual and  interrogatory  system  of  education  might 
and  ought  to  be  in  practice.  With  adaptations  and 
modifications  specially  suited  to  the  peculiar  circum- 
stances of  India  as  it  then  was,  this  was  essentially 
the  system  introduced  and  wrought  out,  from  the 
very  first  day  on  which  our  school  was  opened." 

•  A  similar  process  was  going  on  in  Scotland  where  Dr.  Andrew 
Thomson  condescended  to  the  same  humble  but  then  necessary  task 
of  primer- writing,  alphabet-teaching  and  map- illustration,  and 
trained  Mr.  Thomas  Oliphant  to  make  English  education  what  it 
has  since  become  in  Edinburgh  and  iu  Glasgow. 


128  LIFE   OP   DTI.    DUFF.  18301 

Increased  accommodation  was  secured,  and  the  next 
step  was  taken.  The  decree  went  forth  that  nono 
would  bo  allowed  to  begin  English  who  could  not  read 
with  ease  their  own  vernacular.  The  purely  Bengale."* 
department  was  then  created,  in  a  bamboo  shed  with 
tiled  roof  erected  in  the  back  court.  Under  pundits 
carefully  supervised  by  the  missionaries,  that  has  ever 
since  formed  an  essential  part  of  the  organization. 
But,  for  the  first  time  in  Bengal,  the  English-learning 
classes  also  were  required  to  attend  it  for  an  hour 
daily.  This  contemporaneous  study  had  two  results  of 
vast  national  importance, — it  tended  to  the  enriching 
of  the  vernacular  language  with  words,  and  the  then 
barren  literature  with  pure  and  often  spiritual  ideas. 
This  system  developed  into  that  study  of  Sanscrit 
which,  in  due  time,  the  University  was  enabled  to  in- 
sist on  in  even  its  undergraduate  examinations,  with 
the  happiest  effects  on  both  the  language  and  the  litera- 
ture. Thus,  too,  Mr.  Duff  carried  on  his  own  Bengalee 
studies,  the  rivalry  between  teacher  and  taught,  and 
the  marvellous  aptitude  of  the  taught,  adding  to  his 
one  over-mastering  motive  a  keen  intellectu  1  stimulus. 
That  could  not  be  drudgery  which  was  thus  conducted, 
and  was  in  reality  the  laying  of  the  foundations  of 
the  Church  of  India  broad  and  deep  in  the  very  mind 
and  conscience  of  each  new  generation. 

Thus  the  first  twelve  months  passed.  The  school 
became  famous  in  the  native  city  ;  the  missionary  had 
come  to  be  loved  with  that  mixture  of  affection  and ' 
awe  which  his  lofty  enthusiasm  and  scorn  of  ineffi- 
ciency ever  excited  in  the  Oriental ;  and  the  opposition 
of  his  own  still  ignorant  brethren  was  not  abated.  For 
this  was  no  gourd  to  grow  in  a  night  and  perish  in 
a  night;  and  till  vulgar  success  comes  commonplace 
people  do  not  perceive  the  gifts  of  others,  as  Pascal 
remarks.     Duff  now  resolved  that  he  must  live  as  well 


yEt.  24.  IN   COLLEGE   SQUAIJB.  I  29 

as  work  in  tlio  very  midsfc  of  the  natives,  and  bo  in 
hourly  contact  with  thorn  in  tlio  street  as  well  as  in 
his  own  house.  No  European  had  ever  before  resided 
there,  uor  was  any  Hindoo  prepared  to  let  a  house  to 
one  who  would  pollute  it  hy  tho  consumption  of  beef, 
and  cast  an  evil  spell  on  the  neighbourhood.  Many 
a  week  passed  in  fruitless  endeavours  to  find  an 
abode,  when  a  two-storied  tenement,  uninhabited  for 
twelve  years  because  of  tho  belief  that  it  was  haunted, 
was  with  much  entreaty  obtained  in  College  Square. 
The  locality,  fronting  the  Hindoo  and  Sanscrit 
Colleges,  wos  so  central,  that  it  was  long  afterwards 
secured  by  Mr.  Barton  for  the  Cathedral  Mission 
College,  and  the  Medical  College  and  University  have 
been  built  on  the  third  side  of  the  square.  Up  to  this 
time  ho  had  lived  to  the  south,  on  the  same  line  of 
road,  in  Wellesley  Square,  fronting  the  Muharamadan 
College  and  close  to  the  site  of  the  future  Free 
Church  building.  He  thus  fairly  planted  himself  in 
the  citadel  of  the  enemy,  and  he  was  driven  from 
it  to  another  quarter  only  by  the  unhealthiness  ot 
the  house.  He  subsequently  built  his  first  college, 
still  known  as  the  General  Assembly's  Institution  of 
the  Established  Church  of  Scotland,  and  his  own 
dwelling-place — succeeded,  after  1813,  by  another 
close  by — in  Cornwallis  Square,  to  the  north. 

Despairing  of  inducing  the  European  community  to 
follow  him,  in  order  to  test  the  results  of  his  first 
year's  labour  he  announced  the  examination  of  his 
pupils  in  the  Freemasons'  Hall.  To  remove  the  pre- 
judice that  his  work  was  low  and  fanatical,  he  secured 
Archdeacon  Corrie  as  president  on  the  occasion.  It 
was  an  experiment,  but  Mr.  Duff"  felt  confident  that  the 
pupils  would  so  acquit  themselves  as  to  recommend 
the  school  and  its  system.  In  this  he  was  not  disap- 
pointed.    The  reading  of  the  boys ;  their  acquaintance 


130  LIFE    OF   DR.    DUFF.  1830. 

witli  tlie  elements  of  Englisli  grammar,  geograpliy  and 
aritliraotic ;  the  manner  in  wliicli  they  explained  words 
and  sentences,  and  illustrated  their  meaning  by  ap- 
posite examples ;  the  promptitude  and  accuracy  with 
which  they  answered  the  questions  put  to  them — all 
took  the  auditors  by  surprise  and  filled  them  with 
admiration,  seeing  that  the  school  had  been  only  a 
twelvemonth  in  operation.  But  what  astonished  them 
most  of  all  in  those  early  days  was  the  ease  and 
freedom  with  which  the  Hindoos  read  such  portions 
of  the  Bible  as  were  named  to  them,  as  well  as  the 
readiness  and  accuracy  with  which  they  answered  all 
questions,  not  merely  on  the  historical  parts  but  on 
the  doctrines  and  principles  of  the  Christian  faith  and 
morals,  to  which  their  attention  had  been  directed  in 
the  daily  lessons. 

Altogether  the  efiect  produced  by  that  examination 
was  very  striking.  By  those  present  it  was  pronounced 
absolutely  marvellous.  The  three  daily  English  news- 
papers of  Calcutta  had  their  reporters  present,  who 
gave  such  accounts  of  the  examination  and  the  new 
and  felicitous  modes  of  instruction  pursued  in  the 
school,  that  European  Calcutta  talked  of  nothing  else. 
The  opinions  of  the  English  residents,  official  and 
independent,  reacted  on  the  leaders  of  the  native 
community,  till  in  the  second  year  hundreds  were 
refused  admittance  to  the  school  from  want  of  ac- 
commodation, and  the  number  of  European  visitors 
interfered  so  seriously  with  the  regular  discipline  of 
the  classes  that  Saturday  was  set  apart  for  such  in- 
spection. The  elder  pupils  now  consented  to  act  as 
monitors,  native  assistants  pressed  their  services  upon 
the  missionary,  and  the  elementary  teaching  fell  to 
these  as  the  English  classes  passt  .  on  to  collegiate 
studies  in  sacred  and  secular  truth. 

There  was  another  immediate  result.      Dr.  Inglis 


^t.  24.  THE   TAKEB    BRANCH   MISSION.  I3I 

and  tlio  EJinburgh  committee  liad  their  desire  as  to  a 
school  in  the  interior.  While  visitors  from  all  parts 
of  India,  including  far  Bombay  as  we  shall  see, 
carried  away  with  them  the  principles  of  the  system 
to  establish  schools  elsewhere,  Mr.  Duff  was  implored 
to  open  a  similar  school  at  the  purely  Bengalee  town 
of  Takee,  forty  miles  off.  There  was  the  ancestral 
seat  of  Kaleenath  Roy  Chowdcry,  one  of  the  principal 
followers  of  Rammohun  Roy.  He  and  his  brothers 
offered  all  the  buildings  and  appliances  for  an  English, 
Bengalee  and  Persian  school,  to  be  supervised  by  Mr. 
Duff,  and  taught  by  men  of  his  own  selection  and  on 
his  own  Christian  system,  whom  in  the  Bengalee  and 
Persian  departments  the  brothers  would  pay.  The 
triumph  was  complete.  There  a  vigorous  mission 
school  arose,  long  conducted  by  the  Rev.  W.  C.  Fyfe, 
now  head  of  the  Calcutta  Mission,  and  aided  by  Dr. 
Temple,  whose  widow  (now  Mrs.  W.  S.  Mackay)  and 
family  have  ever  since  been  most  closely  identified 
with  spiritual  and  mission  work.  The  examination  of 
the  school  and  the  example  of  the  Chowdery  family  led 
not  a  few  of  their  wealthy  co-religionists  in  Calcutta 
to  open  new  schools  or  improve  the  old  mechanical 
establishments. 

At  this  time  Mr.  Duff  supplied  the  Hindoo  reformer 
with  the  following:  letter  of  introduction  to  Dr.  Chal- 
mers.  Had  they  met  during  the  brief  remainder  of 
Raja  Rammohun  Roy's  life,  which  was  spent  almost 
exclusively  in  the  society  of  English  Unitarians,  the 
sympathetic  Christian  divine,  who  had  himself  passed 
through  the  last  spiritual  conflict  left  for  the  truth- 
seeking  Hindoo,  might  have  led  him  to  the  only  wiso 
God,  the  Saviour.  As  it  was,  the  Raja  died  in  1833, 
declaring  that  he  was  neither  Christian,  Muhammadan, 
nor  Hindoo.  To  the  last  he  preserved  his  caste,  that 
he  might  secure  his  civil  rights  of  property  and  in- 


132  LIFE   OP  DR.   DUFF.  1 830. 

lieritance   and  retain   his  nationality.     His  best  bio- 
graplier  pronounces  him  *'  a  religious  Benthamite." 

*'  Calcutta,  College  Squaee,  18th  Nov.,  1830. 

"  My  Dear  Sir, — This  may  probably  be  delivered  to 
you  by  the  celebrated  Rammohun  Roy.  His  general 
character  and  acquirements  are  too  well  known  to  re- 
quire any  description  on  my  part.  And  when  I  say  that 
he  has  rendered  to  me  the  most  valuable  and  efficient 
assistance  in  prosecuting  some  of  the  objects  of  the 
General  Assembly's  Mission,  I  feel  confident  I  have 
said  enough  to  secure  from  you  towards  him  every 
possible  attention  in  your  power.  Any  further  parti- 
culars illustrative  of  the  accompanying  document,  which 
is  a  copy  of  what  I  originally  inserted  in  a  religious 
periodical  published  in  Calcutta,  you.  as  a  member  of 
the  Assembly's  committee,  may  learn  from  Dr.  Inglis. 
I  would  write  to  you  more  frequently  and  more  fully, 
were  it  not  that  I  ever  cherish  the  impression  that 
whatever  is  addressed  to  Dr.  Inglis,  as  chairman  of 
the  Assembly  committee,  is  equally  addressed  to  every 
individual  member  of  it.  Remember  me  kindly  to  Mrs. 
Chalmers  and  family.  Yours  most  sincerely  and  grate- 
fully, "  Alexander  Duff." 

Dr..  Inglis  and  the  Church  of  Scotland,  sorely  tried 
by  the  disasters  which  befell  the  first  missionary,  and 
even  before  they  could  learn  his  safe  arrival  at  Cal- 
cutta, determined  to  pursue  their  original  plan  of 
sending  out  two  colleagues  to  assist  him  whom  they 
had  appointed  "  the  head  master  of  a  seminary  of 
education  with  branch  schools."  One  was  most 
happily  found  in  a  tall,  slightly  bent  and  pale  youth 
from  Thurso,  who,  having  studied  at  Aberdeen  Univer- 
sity, completed  his  course  at  St.  Andrews  a  year  after 
Duff,  but  in  time  to  know  well  the  man  whom  he  ever 


JEt.  24.  HIS  FIEST  ENGLISH    ASSISTANT.  1 33 

afterwards  worked  along  with  iu  loving  harmony. 
The  Rev.  W.  S.  Mackay,  who  joined  the  infant  mission 
in  the  autumn  of  1831,  was  so  accomplished  and 
elegant  a  scholar  that  it  is  difficult  to  say  whether  ho 
became  more  remarkable  as  a  learned  theologian,  as 
a  master  of  English  literature  and  style,  or  as  an 
astronomer.  A  lofty  and  intense  spirituality  marked 
all  his  work,  and  only  a  robust  physique  was  wanting 
to  him.  But  even  his  assistance  was  not  enough,  as 
the  school  developed  into  a  college,  and  branch  schools 
like  Takee  demanded  organization  and  supervision, 
while  other  duties  than  that  of  daily  teaching  denied 
the  missionary  a  moment's  leisure.  Competent  lay 
teaching  of  secular  subjects  was  required,  and  for  this 
the  acute  but  imitative  Bengalee  intellect  had  not  yet 
been  sufficiently  trained. 

Mr.  Duft'  thus  found  his  first  English  assistant. 
Among  the  passengers  of  the  Moira  was  a  Mr.  Clift, 
the  son  of  an  English  squire,  who  was  going  out  to 
one  of  the  great  mercantile  houses  of  Calcutta.  Being 
of  a  combative  disposition  he  was  placed  by  the  captain 
next  to  the  missionary,  who  soon  discovered  that  he 
was  highly  educated  and  well  read,  especially  in  the 
then  little  studied  science  of  political  economy.  On 
the  failure  of  the  firm  in  which  the  youth  became  an 
assistant,  he  sought  the  advice  of  Mr.  Duff,  who  at 
once  offered  him  the  position  of  assistant  master  on 
sixty  pounds  a  year — the  highest  salary  he  was  em- 
powered to  give,  but  invited  him  to  his  house  as  a 
guest.  Mr.  Clift  did  his  work  in  the  higher  classes 
well.  In  the  house  his  conduct  was  upright,  and  at 
least  respectful  in  reference  to  religion,  on  which,  how- 
ever, he  maintained  a  studied  silence.  He  was  sent  to 
the  Takee  branch  school  as  its  first  master.  Thence 
he  returned,  stricken  with  jungle  fever,  to  the  tender 
ministrations  of   Mrs.  Duff.     In  the  delirium  of  the 


134  I^^^E   OF   DR.    DUFF.  183 1. 

disease  lie  was  heard  repeating  Cowper*s  hymn,  "  There 
is  a  fountain  filled  with  blood."  As  he  recovered  he 
confessed  that  he  had  been  trained  by  pious  parents, 
and  that  he  had  led  a  careless  life.  He  became  a 
changed  man  on  his  return  to  Takee,  from  which 
Government  took  him  subsequently  to  make  him  prin- 
cipal of  an  English  college.  The  incident  powerfully 
confirmed  the  young  missionary  in  his  conviction  of 
what  was  then  little  recognised  in  educational  systems, 
the  importance  of  saturating  the  young  mind  with 
divine  truth. 

But  the  episode  has  a  twofold  interest  apart  from 
that.  This  youth  was  only  one  of  many  of  that  class 
of  adventurers  who,  like  Meadows  Taylor  in  Western 
India,  and  hundreds  of  well-educated  lads  who 
enlisted  in  the  East  India  Company's  Artillery  es- 
pecially, sought  in  service  in  the  East,  mercantile, 
military  and  uncovenanted,  the  career  denied  to  their 
roving  and  romantic  spirits  elsewhere.  Sir  Henry 
Lawrence,  after  he  published  his  marvellous  sketch  of 
the  lives  of  such  military  adventurers  in  the  Punjab,* 
more  than  once  promised  us  to  write  a  book  on  the 
prominent  English,  Scotch  and  Irish  adventurers 
in  India,  for  none  knew  them  so  well  seeing  that  none 
assisted  them  so  gsnerously.  But  Mr.  Clift  Lad  even 
a  closer  interest  for  Alexander  Duff,  introduced  as  the 
missionary  had  been  into  the  practical  and  theoretical 
teaching  of  political  science  by  Dr.  Chalmers,  who 
had  in  Glasgow  just  before  given  a  new  illustration 
of  the  meaning  and  the  working  of  economics  in  the 
highest  sense.  In  his  determination  to  use  all  truth 
for  the  good  of  the  people  of  India,  and  through  it  to 


*  Adventures  of  an  Officer  in  tlie  Service  of  Runjeet  Singh,  by  Major 
H.  M.  L.  Lawrence,  Bengal  Artillery :  1845.  The  book  is  now  as 
rare  as  it  is  valuable. 


JEt.  2$.     THE    FIRST   TEACHER    OP   POLITICAL    ECONOMY.      1 35 

educate  tliem  to  recognise  and  love  tlie  higlicst  truth, 
Duff  projected  a  manual  of  political  economy  more 
elementary  than  the  writings  of  Adam  Smith  and  J.  R. 
McCuUoch.  Even  at  the  outset  he  began  to  suspect, 
what  every  year  and  many  a  woful  blunder  like  tho 
mortality  of  the  Orissa  famine  have  since  proved, 
that  without  the  data  supplied  by  the  old  civiliza- 
tions, the  so-called  *pre-historic'  customs  and  the 
social  systems  of  the  East,  political  economy  must 
be  partial  in  its  generalizations  and  one-sided  in  its 
principles.  Still,  even  as  it  was  in  1831,  the  science 
might  be  a  powerful  armoury  against  the  caste,  tho 
social  exclusiveness,  the  commercial  apathy,  the  in- 
dustrial antipathy,  which  marked  the  Hindoos. 

Recalling  his  talk  at  the  cuddy  table  of  the  Moira^ 
Duff  proposed  to  Mr.  Clift  the  drafting  of  such  a 
manual.  The  manuscript  he  expanded  with  new  illus- 
trations and  vivid  contrasts,  all  leading  up  to  Christian 
teaching.  The  book  became  most  popular,  as  taught 
in  the  spirit  in  which  it  was  written.  Thus  Mr.  Duff's 
school  was  the  first  in  which  political  economy  was 
expounded  in  a  country  where,  indeed,  the  Permanent 
Settlement  of  Cornwallis  and  the  famous  *  Fifth  Re- 
port '  had  groped  in  the  dark  after  a  just  and  self- 
developing  system  'of  land  revenue  and  treatment  of 
land  tenures  ;  but  where  Holt  Mackenzie  and  Mertina 
Bird,  Thomason  and  John  Lawrence  were  yet  bene- 
volently to  dogmatize  in  favour  of  thirty  years'  leases, 
which  each  changing  Government  uses  to  screw  more 
and  more  out  of  the  peasantry,  and  tlftis  chiefly  makes 
them  unable  to  withstand  famine  when  it  comes.  But 
the  story  is  not  complete.  So  little  had  political 
economy  been  mastered  in  the  land  of  Adam  Smith 
and  m  the  kirk  of  Thomas  Chalmers,  that  the  com- 
mittee condemned  the  enthusiastic  missionary,  when 
he  joyfully  reported  his  success,  for  teaching  a  subject 


13^  lilFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  183 1. 

■wliicli  tlie  monopolist  Government  of  the  East  India 
Company  might  confound  with  pohtics  ! 

Alexander  Duff  was  not  only  in  the  citadel  of  Hindoo- 
ism  ;  he  had  already  dug  his  mine  and  laid  the  powder. 
The  fire  from  heaven  was  about  to  fall,  as  he  invoked  it 
in  the  prayer  of  Lord  Bacon*:  — "  To  God  the  Father, 
God  the  Word,  God  the  Spirit,  we  pour  most  humble 
and  hearty  supplications ;  that  He,  remembering  the 
calamities  of  mankind,  and  the  pilgrimage  of  this  our 
life,  in  which  we  wear  out  days  few  and  evil,  would 
please  to  open  unto  us  new  refreshments  out  of  the 
fountains  of  His  goodness  for  the  alleviation  of  our 
miseries.  This  also  we  humbly  and  earnestly  beg, 
that  human  things  may  not  prejudice  such  as  are 
divine ;  neither  that,  from  the  unlocking  of  the  gates 
of  sense,  and  the  kindling  of  a  greater  natural  light, 
anything  of  incredulity  or  intellectual  night  may  arise 
in  our  minds  towards  divine  mysteries.  But  rather 
that, — by  our  mind  thoroughly  cleansed  and  purged 
from  fancy  and  vanities,  and  yet  subject  and  perfectly 
given  up  to  the  divine  oracles, — there  may  be  given 
up  unto  faith  the  things  which  are  faith's. — Amen." 


*  Quoted  in  Indicia  and  India  Missior^  t^  the  '"  appropriate  con- 
clusion "  of  the  book. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

1831—1833. 
TEE  FIRST  EXPLOSION   AND    TEE   FOUR   CONVERTS. 

Eagerness  of  the  Bengalee  Youth  to  learn  English. — Self-evidenc- 
ing Power  of  Clirist's  Teaching. — The  Pharisees  of  Brahmanism. 
— The  Disintegrating  Effect  of  tn;.o  Science. — The  Cry  raised 
of  "  Hindooisra  in  Danger." — Projected  Course  of  Lectures. — 
Derozio  and  the  Atheists  of  the  Hindoo  College. — Tom  Paine 
the  favourite  Author, — The  first  and  only  Lecture. — -The  City 
in  an  Uproar. — The  Govern  or- General  privately  Encourages  the 
Mis.sionary. — Duff  studying  Bengalee. — First  propounds  national 
system  of  Female  Education. — The  Debating  Societies. — Robert 
Burns  on  the  banks  of  the  Ganges.— The  Native  Press,  English 
and  Vernacular. — Krishna  Mohun  Banorjea — Second  Course  of 
Lectures. — Mohesh  Chundei  Ghose,  the  First  Convert,  brings 
his  Brother  to  Christ. — Confessions  of  Krishna  Mohun  and  his 
Baptism. — The  Third  or  Martyr  Convert. — The  Fourth  Convert 
at  last  SuiTendered  by  his  Father  to  Duff.—  Origin  of  the  Calcutta 
Missionary  Conference. — Duff's  great  scheme  of  a  United  Chris- 
tian College  foiled  by  sectarian  controversy  in  England. — A 
Bombay  Civilian's  Pitiiture-of  the  Revolution  in  Bengalee  society. 
— Bull's  private  estimate  of  his  Success  and  faith  in  his  Policy. 
— The  English  Language  and  British  Administration  required  to 
do  their  part. 

"  Throughout  the  whole  progress  of  these  preparatory 
arrangements,"  Mr.  DufF  afterwards  wrote,  "  the  ex- 
citement among  the  natives  continued  unabated.  They 
pursued  us  along  the  streets.  They  threw  open  the 
very  doors  of  our  palankeen,  and  poured  in  their 
supplications  with  a  pitiful  earnestness  of  counte- 
nance that  might  have  softened  a  heart  of  stone.  In 
the  most  plaintive  and  pathetic  strains  they  deplored 
their  ignorance.  They  craved  for  '  English  reading  ' 
— *  English  knowledge.'      They  constantly  appealed  to 


138  LIFE    OP  DR.    DUFF.  1831. 

the  compassion  of  an  *  Ingraji '  or  Englishman,  ad- 
dressing us  in  the  stylo  of    Oriental    hyperbole,  as 

*  the  great  and  fathomless  ocean  of  all  imaginable 
excellences/  for  having  come  so  far  to  teach  poor 
ignorant  Bengalees.  And  then,  in  broken  English, 
some  would  say,  'Me  good  boy,  oh  take  me;'  others, 

*  Me  poor  boy,  oh  take  mo;' — some,  *  Me  want  read 
your  good  books,  oh  take  me ;'  others,  '  Me  know  your 
commandments,  Thou  shalt  have  no  other  gods  before 
Me, — oh  take  mo  ;' — and  many,  by  way  of  final  appeal, 

*  Oh  take  me,  and  I  pray  for  you.'  And  even  after 
the  final  choice  was  made,  such  was  the  continued 
press  of  new  candidates  that  it  was  found  absolutely 
necessary  to  issue  small  written  tickets  for  those  who 
had  succeeded ;  and  to  station  two  men  at  the  outer 
door  to  admit  only  those  who  were  of  the  selected 
number." 

Payment  for  class-books,  and  the  formal  signature 
by  parents  and  guardians  of  an  agreement  to  secure 
punctual  and  regular  attendance,  struck  at  the  root 
of  two  evils  which  marked  all  the  other  schools  and 
colleges  in  Calcutta.  The  more  severe  test  of  steady 
attention  to  the  Bible  studies  was  no  kss  cheerfully 
submitted  to,  parents  also  beiug  invited  to  listen  to 
the  hoiir's  preaching  to  the  young  every  day,  and  to 
satisfy  tliemselves  that  Christianity  did  not  act  as  a 
spell,  although  it  might  in  time  persuade  as  a  divine 
force  co-operating  with  the  truth-seeking  soul ;  and 
was  in  any  case  a  perfect  system  of  moral  principles 
and  practice.  The  Lord's  Prayer  was  succeeded  by 
the  master  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  and  then 
came  the  apostolic  teaching  to  I'he  Corinthians  on 
what  our  fathers  called  charity. 

"  Throughout,  all  were  attentive  ;  and  the  minds  of 
a  few  became  intensely  riveted,  which  the  glistening 
eye  and   changeful    countenance,    reflecting   as   in  a 


MX.  25.  SELF-EVFDENCING    LIGHT    OV   THE    SCRIPTURES.        1 39 

mirror  the  inward  thought  and  varying  emotion, 
most  clearly  indicated.  At  last,  when  to  the  picture 
of  charity  the  concluding  stroke  was  given  by  the 
pencil  of  inspiration  in  the  emphatic  words  '  endureth 
all  things,'  one  of  the  young  men,  the  very  Brahman 
who  but  a  few  days  before  had  risen  up  to  oppose  the 
reading  of  the  Bible,  now  started  from  his  seat  ex- 
claiming aloud,  '  Oh,  sir,  that  is  too  good  -for  us. 
Who  can  act  up  to  that?  who  can  act  up  to  that?' 
A  finer  exemplification,  taking  into  view  all  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  case,  could  not  well  be  imagined  of 
the  self-evidencing  light  of  God's  holy  word.  It  was 
an  almost  unconscious  testimony  to  the  superior  ex- 
cellence of  Christianity,  extorted  from  the  lips  of  an 
idolatrous  Brahman  by  the  simple  manifestation  of  its 
own  divine  spirit.  It  was  a  sudden  burst  of  spontane- 
ous homage  to  the  beauty  and  power  and  holiness  of 
the  truth,  in  its  own  naked  and  unadorned  simplicity, 
at  a  moment  when  the  mind  was  wholly  untrammelled 
and  unbiassed  by  prejudice,  or  party  interest,  or  sect." 

Then  followed  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  which 
drove  home  to  a  people  more  enslaved  by  the  letter 
that  killeth  than  even  those  to  whom  it  was  originally 
addressed,  the  lesson  of  the  Spirit.  "  When,  on  one 
occasion,  the  question  was  put,  *  What  do  you  mean 
by  Pharisee  ?'  a  boy  of  inferior  caste,  looking  signifi- 
cantly at  a  young  Brahman  in  the  same  class  and  then 
pointing  to  him,  archly  replied,  '  He  is  one  of  our 
Pharisees  !' — while  the  Brahman  simply  retorted  in 
great  good  humour,  '  True,  my  caste  is  like  that  of  the 
Pharisees,  or  worse ;  but  you  know  I  am  not  to  bo 
like  my  caste.'  " 

Nor  was  this  all.  From  the  simple  reading  of  the 
words  that  promise  blessedness  to  him  who  loves  and 
prays  for  his  enemy,  one  youth  was  turned  to  the  feet 
of  the  Divine  Speaker  and  became  the  fourth  convert 


I40  LIFE    OF   PR.    DUFF.  1831. 

of  the  mission.  For  days  and  weeks  the  young  Hindoo 
could  not  help  crying  out,  "  '  Love  your  enemies  1 
bless  them  that  curse  you ! '  How  beautiful !  how 
divine  1  surely  this  is  the  truth!'*  And  in  the  more 
directly  secular  lessons  science  came  to  carry  on  what 
grace  had  begun  in  the  morning  and  was  yet  to  com- 
plete. The  explanation  of  the  word  "  rain "  on  the 
Scoto-Socratic  method  in  a  junior  class,  led  to  the 
discovery  by  the  lads  of  its  true  nature,  as  neitlier 
Indra-born  nor  from  a  celestial  elephant,  according  to 
the  Shasters,  but  the  result  of  natural  laws.  "  Then 
what  becomes  of  our  Shaster,  if  your  account  is  true," 
remarked  a  young  Brahman.  "  The  Shaster  is  true, 
Brahma  is  true,  and  your  Gooroo's  account  must  be 
false — and  yet  it  looks  so  like  the  truth." 

This  was  but  a  slight  shock  compared  with  that 
given  on  the  next  eclipse.  Mr.  Dulf  was  himself  as 
much  surprised  by  the  effect  of  his  teaching  as  his 
pupils.  He  wrote  of  this  time  : — "  Though  we  were 
previously  acquainted  in  a  general  way  with  the  fact, 
that  modern  literature  and  science  were  as  much 
opposed  as  Christianity  itself  to  certain  fundamen- 
tal tenets  of  Hindooism,  our  own  conception  on  the 
subject  was  vague  and  indeterminate.  It  floated  in 
the  horizon  as  an  intangible  abstraction.  Now  this 
incident,  by  reducing  the  abstract  into  the  concrete, 
by  giving  the  vague  generality  a  substantial  form,  by 
converting  the  loosely  theoretical  into  the  practically 
experimental, — at  once  arrestee"'  fixed  and  defined  it. 
A  vivid  glimpse  was  opened,  not  only  of  the  effect 
of  true  knowledge  when  brought  in  contact  with 
Hindooism,  but  of  the  modus  operandi,  the  precise 
mode  in  which  it  operated  in  producing  the  effect." 

The  effect  of  the  first  year's  teaching.  Biblical, 
scientific,  and  literary,  through  English  and  through 
Bengalee,  on  even  the  young  Hindoos,  was  to  lead 


yKt.  25-  TUB    CRY    OF    *  IIINDOOISM    IS   DANGER.'  141 

tlicm  into  licence  before  they  could  reacli  true  self- 
regulating  liberty ;  for  the  Bengiileo  boy  just  before  or 
at  the  age  of  puberty  is  the  most  earnest,  acute  and 
loveablo  of  all  students.  The  older  lads,  "  impetuous 
with  youthful  ardour  and  fearless  of  consequences, 
carried  the  new  light  which  had  arisen  on  their  own 
minds  to  the  bosom  of  their  families,  proclaimed  its 
excellences  on  the  house-tops,  and  extolled  its  praises 
in  the  street-assemblies.  With  the  zeal  of  proselytes 
they  did  not  always  observe  circumspection  in  their 
demeanour  and  style  of  address,  or  manifest  due  con- 
sideration for  the  feelings  of  those  who  still  sat  in 
darkness.  Even  for  the  infallible  Gooroos  and  other 
holy  Brahmans,  before  whom  they  were  wont  to  bow 
in  prostrate  submission,  their  reverence  was  greatly 
diminiiihed.  They  would  not  conceal  their  gradual 
change  of  sentiment  on  many  vital  points.  At  length 
their  undaunted  bearing  and  freedom  of  speech  began 
to  create  a  general  ferment  among  the  staunch  ad- 
herents of  the  old  faith.  Tlie  cry  of  '  Hindooism  in 
danger '  was  fairly  raised." 

The  result  was  seen  one  forenoon,  when  only  half  a 
dozen  of  the  three  hundred  youths  appr.a'ed  in  the 
class-room.  To  the  question  of  the  puzzled  missionary 
the  only  reply  was  a  copy  of  that  morning's  Ghimdrihi. 
This  Bengalee  paper  had  been  established  to  fight  for 
the  sacred  right  of  burning  living  widows  with  their 
dead  husbands.  Now,  as  the  organ  of  the  orthodox 
Dharma  Soblia,  of  which  its  editor  was  secretary,  it 
had  become  the  champion  of  the  whole  Brahmanical 
system  against  an  aggressive  evangelical  Christianity 
of  a  very  different  type  from  the  secularism  of  the 
Hindoo  College  with  which  it  had  of  late  been  allied. 
The  decree  went  forth  that  all  who  attended  the 
General  Assembly's  Institution  were  to  be  excluded 
from  caste,  and  it  was   urged  that  a  yellow  flag  or 


142  LIFE    OP   DR.    DUrP.  1831. 

other  unmistakable  symbol  should  bo  planted  in  front 
of  the  building  to  warn  the  unwary  against  the  moral 
and  religious  pestilence.  But  the  Hindoo  society 
of  the  capital  had  already  become  too  rationalistic  in 
its  mode  of  viewing  the  national  faith,  and  too  selfish 
in  its  desire  to  secure  the  best  education  which  would 
lead  to  official  and  mercantile  appointments.  The 
])anic  did  not  last  a  week.  The  lEoly  Assembly  had 
no  greater  power  than  public  opinion  chose  to  give  it. 
Further  diatribes  against  the  missionary  and  his  work 
revealed  only  the  essential  weakness  of  a  body  which 
the  earlier  refonns  of  Ilammohun  Hoy  had  provoked 
into  existence.  Mr.  Duff  went  calmly  on  till  the 
classes  became  more  crowded  than  ever.  The  quiet- 
ness and  confidence  of  an  assured  faith  and  an  in- 
tellectual conviction  were  seen  in  his  drawing  up, 
after  the  experience  of  the  first  six  months,  "  the 
scheme  of  a  complete  educational  course  which  might 
require  nine  or  ten  years  for  its  development,  with 
grounds,  reasons  and  illustrations  "  occupying  in  all 
about  a  hundred  closely  written  folio  pages.  This 
he  sent  off  to  Dr.  Inglis  as  the  mechanism  of  the 
Christian  Institute  to  regenerate  Bengal  and  light  a 
fire  in  British  India,  from  which  ever  since  many  a 
torch  has  been  kindled  to  help  in  the  destined  de- 
struction of  every  form  of  error. 

The  college  thus  securely  established  in  native  so- 
ciety, triumphing  over  the  ignorance  of  his  own 
countrymen  and  already  famous  throughout  India, 
Mr.  Duff  proceeded  to  use  at  the  same  time  the  two 
other  more  immediately  powerful  weapons  of  lectures 
and  the  press.  The  minds  of  not  a  few  leading  Hindoos 
had  been  emptied  of  their  ancestral  idols  spiritual  and 
ecclesiastical,  and  were  swept  and  garnished.  Into 
some,  thus  deprived  of  even  the  support  which  the  ethi- 
cal elements  of  their  old  orthodoxy  supplied,  the  new 


ilit.  25.        THE    IKUilllNT  IN   TUB    UlNDOO   COLLEGE.  I43 

tlcnions  of  lawless  lust  and  Western  vice  had  entered 
with  the  secularism  and  anti-theism  of  the  Hindoo 
Colle'T^e,  so  that  their  last  state  was  worse  than  the 
first.  Others,  saved  for  the  hour  from  this,  wore  in 
the  temporary  attitude  of  candid  inquirers,  bold  to 
violence  in  their  denunciation  of  the  follies  of  which 
they  and  their  fathers  had  long  been  the  victims, 
but  timid  towards  the  new  faith,  with  its  tremendous 
claims  on  their  conscience  and  irresistible  appeals  to 
their  intellect.  In  May,  1829,  the  teaching  of  a 
Eurasian  of  some  genius  and  much  conceit,  named 
Derozio,  had  bop^un  to  undermine  the  faith  of  the 
students  of  the  Hindoo  College  in  "all  religious  prin- 
ciples whatever,"  as  even  its  secularist  managers  ex- 
pressed it.  Hence  they  formally  resolved  that  Mr. 
D'Ansc'line,  tlie  head-master,  "in  communication  with 
the  teachers,  check  as  far  as  possible  all  disquisitions 
tending  to  unsettle  the  belief  of  the  boys  in  the  great 
principles  of  natural  religion."  This  interference  only 
fanned  the  smouldering  fires.  Discussion  blazed  out 
into  ridicule.  Young  Brahmans  refused  to  be  guilty 
of  the  hypocrisy  of  submitting  to  investment  with 
the  'po'ita,  or  sevenfold  Brahmanical  cord ;  many  sub- 
stituted favourite  lines  of  Pope's  "  Iliad "  for  their 
daily  and  festival  prayers.  In  February,  1830,  seeing 
that  the  Hindoo  College  was  thus  threatened  with  ex- 
tinction, although  all  that  was  going  on  was  only  the 
logical  outcome  of  their  principles  and  their  adminis- 
tration, the  managers  threatened  with  immediate  dis- 
missal teachers  who  did  not  "  abstain  from  any  com- 
munications on  the  subject  of  the  Hindoo  religion 
with  the  boys,"  or  who  suffered  "  any  practices  incon- 
sistent with  the  Hindoo  notions  of  propriety,  such  as 
eating  or  drinking  in  the  school  or  class-rooms." 

By  April,  1831,  the  ferment  had  so  increased  that 
Mr.  Derozio  was  discharged  as  "  the  root  of  all  evils  and 


144  LIFE    OP  BR.    DUFF.  1831. 

cause  of  public  alarm."  "Students  of  *'the  dining  party" 
wlio  had  broken  caste  by  eating  animal  food,  or  food 
with  Hindoos  of  other  castes  than  their  own,  were 
removed  ;  and  it  was  determined  that  "  such  books  as 
may  injure  their  morals  should  not  be  allowed  to  be 
brought,  taught,  or  read  in  the  college."  This  was 
what  fifteen  years'  teaching  of  English  and  Sanscrit, 
by  the  East  India  Company  and  orthodox  Bengalees 
combined,  at  the  bidding  of  Parliament  which  sought 
the  moral  and  spiritual  elevation  of  our  native  sub- 
jects, had  resulted  in.  The  unhappy  Derozio,  whose 
end  was  even  sadder  than  his  life  which  might  have 
reflected  lustre  on  the  valuable  but  then  uncared 
for  community  of  Eurasians,  was  charged  with  incul- 
cating *'  the  non-existence  of  God,  the  lawfulness  of 
disrespect  towards  parents,  the  lawfulness  of  marriage 
with  sisters."  He  admitted  the  first,  but  pleaded  that 
his  chief  object  had  been  to  enable  the  boys  "  to  ex- 
amine both  sides  of  the  question."  Mr.  Hare  still 
was  of  opinion  that  he  was  a  highly  competent  teacher; 
and  Dr.  H.  H.  Wilson,  the  official  visitor  on  the  part 
of  Government,  which  spent  the  public  funds  on  the 
place,  declared  he  had  never  observed  any  ill  effects 
from  Derozio's  instructions.  But  the  atheistic  and 
immora?!  poet  was  dismissed  in  deference  to  the  clam- 
ours of  the  orthodox  idolaters,  although  the  principal 
English  text-b")oks,  taught  by  men  in  quite  as  full 
accord  with  them  as  he,  were  the  more  licentious  plays 
of  the  Eestoration  and  David  Hume's  Essays  ! 

Outside  of  the  classes,  but  constantly  referred  to  by 
the  teachers,  the  favourite  book  was  Paine's  coarse  "Age 
of  Eeason,"  which  a  respectable  deist  would  not  now 
mention  save  as  a  warning.  That  book,  his  better  reply 
to  Burke,  his  "Rights  of  Man,"  and  his  minor  pieces 
born  of  the  filth  of  the  worst  period  of  the  Fi  >ch  Revo- 
lution, an  American  publisher  issued  in  a  cheap  octavo 


^t.  25.  SCEPTICAL   INQUIRY.  1 45 

edition  of  a  tliousaud  copies,  and  shipped  the  whole  to 
the  Calcutta  market;  such  was  the  notoriety  of  the 
anti-christian  success  of  the  college  which  Raramohun 
Roy  was  ashamed  to  patronise.  These  were  all  bought 
at  once  at  two  shillings  a  copy,  and  such  was  the 
continued  demand  for  the  worst  of  the  treatises  that 
cio-ht  rupees  (sixteen  shillings)  was  vainly  offered  for 
it.*  Thus,  from  the  opposite  poles  of  truth,  were  the 
two  English  colleges — the  old  secularists'  and  the  new 
evangelical  missionary's — brought  into  collision,  as 
the  former  retired  foiled  ir  its  assault  on  Hindooisra, 
and  the  latter  advanced  with  renewed  trust  in  the  God 
of  truth  to  fire  the  train.  Unlike  the  horror-stricken 
but  passive  Christian  preachers  in  the  vernacular 
chapels  and  schools  of  Calcutta  at  that  time,  the 
young  Scotsman  threw  himself  into  the  breach 
made  in  the  at  last  crumbling  walls  of  Hindooism. 
"We  rejoiced,"  he  wrote,  "in  June,  1830,  when, 
in  the  metropolis  of  British  India,  we  fairly  came 
in  contact  with  a  rising  body  of  natives,  who  had 
learnt  to  think  and  to  discuss  all  subjects  with  un- 
shackled freedom,  though  that  freedom  was  ever  apt 
to  degenerate  into  licence  in  attempting  to  demolish 
the  claims  and  pretensions  of  the  Christian  as  well 
as  every  other  professedly  revealed  faith.  We  hailed 
the  circumstance,  as  indicating  the  approach  of  a 
period  for  which  we  had  waited  and  longed  and 
prayed.  We  hailed  it  as  heralding  the  dawn  of  an 
auspicious  era, — an  era  that  introduced  something  new 
into  the  hitherto  undisturbed  reign  of  a  hoary  and 
tyrannous  antiquity." 

Having  by  his  first  j^-ear's  work  of  teaching  and 
personal  intiuence  carried  on  this  work  of  preparation 
for  calm  inquiry,  he  took  three  men  of  like  spirit  with 

*  Calcutta  Christian  Observer  for  August,  1832. 

L 


146  LIFE    OP    DR.    DUFF.  1 831, 

himself  into  his  counsels.  Dr.  Dealtry,  who  succeeded 
Corrie  first  as  Archdeacon  of  Calcutta  and  then  as 
Bishop  of  Madras,  was  at  that  time  chaplain  of  the 
Old  Church,  and  was  worthy  of  such  predecessors  as 
Martyn  and  Chiudius  Buchanan.  John  Adam  had 
been  his  own  fellow-student  at  St.  Andrews,  and  was 
then  of  the  London  Missionary  Society.  Mr.  James 
Hill,  also  a  Congregationalist,  was  the  popular  and 
able  pastor  of  tliat  Union  Chapel  in  wiiich  Christians 
of  all  sects  still  gather  on  the  first  day  of  every  year 
for  catholic  communion,  after  a  fashion  too  rare  in 
divided  Christendom.  Ali  were  eager  observers  of 
nativ^e  jjrogress,  and  agreed  to  co-operate  in  delivering 
the  first  course  of  lectures  to  educated  Bengalees. 
The  subject  was  Natural  and  Revealed  Religion.  The 
first  lecture,  on  the  External  and  Internal  Evidenoes, 
fell  to  Mr.  Duff;  Mr.  Adam  undertook  the  second, 
on  the  testimony  of  History  and  Fulfilled  Prophecy; 
Mr.  Hill  was  to  prepare  the  third,  on  Christ  in  the 
Four  Gospels,  and  the  Genius  and  Temper  of  His 
Religion.  Dr.  Dealtry  was  to  close  the  course  with 
a  statement  of  the  doctrines  of  Christianity.  But  to 
prepare  the  native  mind  for  unprejudiced  inquiry,  Mr. 
Hill  delivered  an  introductory  lecture  on  the  moral 
qualifications  necessary  for  investigating  truth.  Mr. 
Duff  fitted  up  a  lecture  room  in  his  house,  which, 
being  still  in  College  Square,  was  most  central  for  the 
class  invited.  To  some  that  room  became  the  place  of 
a  new  birth,  and  its  meiuories  stir  hallow  the  similar 
work,  on  the  same  site,  of  the  Cl  ^rch  Missionary 
Society. 

It  was  a  sultry  night  in  the  first  week  of  August 
when  twenty  of  the  foremost  students  of  his  own  and 
of  the  Hindoo  College  took  their  places  in  expectation 
of  a  novel  exposition.  With  the  chastened  eloquence 
which  used  to  attract  the  Governor-General  and  his 


J£t,  25.  THE   NATIVE    CITY   IN   AN   UPROAR.  1 47 

wife  to  the  dissenting  cliapel,  Mr.  Hill  treated  a  sub- 
ject that  called  fortli  no  controversy,  and  appealed 
to  admitted  but  too  often  neglected  principles.  In 
silence  the  young  men  separated,  looking  forward  to 
the  real  tug  of  war  a  week  after  in  DulFs  lecture  on 
God  and  Ilis  Revealing.       That  never  took  place. 

Next  morning  the  news  flew  like  wildfire  over  Cal- 
cutta. Students  of  the  Hindoo  College  had  actually 
attended,  in  the  house  of  a  missionary,  a  lecture  on 
Christianity  !  Soon  the  whole  city  Avas  in  an  uproar. 
The  college  that  day  was  almost  deserted.  Continu- 
'ing  to  rage  for  days  the  orthodox  leaders  accused  the 
Government  itself  of  breach  of  faith.  Had  it  not 
promised  to  abstain  from  interference  with  their  re- 
hgion,  and  now  insidiously  it  had  brought  out  a  wild 
Padre,  and  planted  him  just  opposite  the  college,  like 
a  battery,  to  break  down  the  bulwarks  of  the  Hindoo 
fiiitli  and  put  Christianity  in  its  place  !  In  all  haste. 
Dr.  H.  H.  Wilson,  Mr.  Hare,  Captain  Price  and  the 
native  managers  put  up  a  notice  threatening  with 
expulsion  students  who  should  attend  "  political  and 
religious  discussions."  That  was  the  degree  of  their 
love  of  truth.  The  students  themselves  remonstrated. 
Mr.  Hill  published  an  indignant  exposure  of  the  mis- 
representation and  cowardice  of  the  college  authori- 
ties ;  and  Mr.  Duff  at  greater  length  assailed  the 
wisdom,  justice  and  goodness  of  their  tyrannical 
decree.  But  he  was  not  ohe  man  to  rashly  imperil 
the  cause  in  which,  like  the  first  missionary,  it  be- 
hoved him  to  be  all  things  to  all  men  if  thereby  he 
might  win  some.  That  was  still  the  time  of  the  East 
India  Company's  absolutism,  when  the  Governor- 
General  had  the  right  of  deporting  non-official  settlers 
without  assigning  reason.  Not  so  very  long  before, 
the  able  civilian  John  Adam  had  gagged  the  press 
and  ruined,  by  deporting,  Mr.  J.  Silk  Buckingham,  to 


148  LIFE   OF   DE.    DUFF.  183 1. 

appease  Dr.  Bryce  and  the  John  Bull  newspaper.  The 
very  existence  of  the  mission  might  be  at  stake,  and 
prudence  at  least  demanded  that  all  the  facts  should 
be  known  to  the  Grovernment,  if  only  that  the  mis- 
sionary might  be  assured  that  it  shared  none  of  the 
Company's  ignorant  fears. 

Mr.  Duff,  therefore,  thought  it  right  to  solicit  a 
private  interview  with  the  Governor-Greneral.  Lord 
William  Bentinck  listened  with  the  utmost  attention 
and  patience.  At  the  close  of  the  statement  he  said  in 
substance  :  Assuming  the  accuracy  of  the  facts  which 
he  could  not  possibly  doubt,  he  felt  that  Mr.  Duff  had 
done  nothing  to  contravene  the  law,  nothing  that 
ought  to  disturb  the  public  peace.  At  the  same  time 
he  added,  from  his  knowledge  of  the  Hindoo  charac- 
ter, that  it  would  be  well  to  allow  the  present  tumult 
quietly  to  subside.  After  a  time  it  might  be  in  Mr. 
Duff's  power  more  successfully  to  renew  the  attempt. 
So  far  as  he  himself  was  concerned,  he  could  not, 
as  Governor-Greneral,  in  any  way  mix  himself  up  with 
missionary  affairs,  or  even  officially  express  sympathy 
and  approval.  But  he  declared  that  privately,  as 
an  individu£il  Christian  man,  he  felt  deep  sympathy 
with  the  avowed  object  of  the  missionaries,  and  ap- 
proved of  the  operations  of  all  who  carried  them  on 
in  the  genuine  spirit  of  the  gospel.  He  who  had  been 
Governor  of  Madras  during  the  Vellore  mutiny,  re- 
peated the  advice  patiently  to  wait  for  a  seasonable 
opportunity  to  recommence  what,  if  Mr.  Duff  went 
about  it  calmly  yet  firmly,  he  himself  would  advance 
by  his  private  sympathy  and  support. 

This  for  the  moment  answered  the  purpose ;  fear 
and  alarm  were  ^bated.  The  most  advanced  students, 
however,  though  having  no  good-will  to  Christianity, 
but  the  contrary,  felt  that  this  was  a  violent  inter- 
ference with  their  freedom  and  independence.      They 


yEt.  25.  FIBST  BENGALEE  SERMON.      FEMALE  EDUCATION.    1 49 

winced  under  the  order,  and  boldly  declaimed  against 
the  bigotry  and  tyranny  of  tlie  college  and  the  Govern- 
ment authorities.  They  seemed  to  champ  like  horses 
prepared  for  battle  when  forcibly  kept  back  by  bit  and 
bridle.  Still  from  policy  or  necessity  they  deemed  it 
expedient  to  submit  to  what  they  reckoned  a  despotic 
exercise  of  authority. 

Being  thus  for  a  time  freed  from  the  task  of  prepar- 
ing lectures  in  addition  to  his  heavy  school  work,  Mr. 
Duff  energetically  set  about  mastering  the  Bengalee 
language  by  the  help  of  a  learned  Brahman  pundit. 
By  the  end  of  a  twelvemonth  he  succeeded  so  as  to 
speak  it  with  tolerable  fluency.  He  wrote  out  for  tho 
sake  of  accuracy  and  committed  to  memory  his  first 
sermon  in  Bengalee.  But  regular  preaching  in  the  ver- 
nacular he  did  well  to  leave  to  others,  who  gave  their 
whole  strength  to  a  work  specially  adapted  to  meet 
a  very  different  class  from  those  who  held  the  inner 
fort  of  Brahmanism.  Denied  lectures,  the  young  men 
met  in  debating  societies  of  their  own.  These,  often 
nightly  and  in  various  quarters  of  the  city,  he  asked 
permission  to  attend,  and  soon  m  address  from  him 
was  welcomed  as  an  attractive  part  of  tho  proceedings. 
There  it  was  that  he  first  formulated  his  far-seeing 
policy  on  the  subject  of  female  education,  from  which 
Government  still  directly  keeps  back  its  hand,  though 
aiding  the  tentative  efforts  of  missionaries. 

At  that  time  Miss  Cooke,  who  became  the  wife  of  the 
Church  missionary,  Mr.  Wilson,  had  been  teaching  the 
first  female  school  in  Bengal  for  eight  years.  She  had 
been  led  to  form  it  by  a  visit  paid  to  one  of  the  boys' 
schools  of  the  Calcutta  School  Society,  in  order  to  ob- 
serve their  pronunciation  of  the  vernacular,  which  she 
was  learning.  Seeing  the  pundit  drive  away  a  wistful- 
eyed  little  girl  from  the  door,  she  was  told  that  the 
child  had  troubled  him  for  the  past  throo  months  with 


150  LIFE    OF  DR.    DUFF.  1831. 

entreaties  to  be  allowed  to  read  with  the  boys.  Next 
day,  on  the  28th  January,  1822,  she  opened  her  first 
school  with  seven  pupils,  and  in  a  year,  with  the 
lielp  of  the  noble  Countess  of  Hastings,  the  Governor- 
General's  wife,  she  had  two  hundred  in  two  schools. 
The  Soranipore  three  had,  as  usual,  anticipated  even 
Mrs.  Wilson  by  their  Female  Juvenile  Society.  But 
at  that  early  period  and  long  after,  the  few  hundred 
girls  under  the  only  partial  and  brief  instruction 
allowed  them  before  very  early  marriage,  formed  but 
units,  and  were  of  a  class  similar  to  those  reached 
by  the  street  and  village  ]  caclier.  Many  were  bribed 
by  money  to  attend.  The  middle  and  higher  classes, 
whose  sons  Mr.  Duff  had  attracted  to  his  own  school 
and  was  daily  influencing  by  personal  intercourse, 
were  shocked  at  the  idea  of  educating  their  wives  and 
daughters ;  and  even  if  they  had  consented,  as  many 
now  do,  would  not  let  them  out  of  the  home-prison  of 
the  zanana. 

But  these  youths  thought  differently,  and  Mr.  Duff 
encouraged  them.  One  evening  he  found  the  subject 
of  debate  by  some  fifty  Hindoo  College  students  to 
be,  "  whether  females  ought  to  be  educated."  As 
to  the  theory  of  the  thing  they  ended  in  being 
unanimous;  one  married  youth  exclaiming,  "Is 
it  alleged  that  female  education  is  prohibited,  if  not 
by  the  letter,  at  least  by  the  spirit  of  some  of  our 
Shasters  ?  If  any  of  the  Shasters  be  found  to  advance 
what  is  so  contrary  to  reason,  I,  for  one,  will  trample 
them  under  my  feet."  The  brave  words  won  raptur- 
ous plaudits  for  the  speaker.  As  these  youths  became 
fathers  and  grandfathers,  female  education  would 
spread  of  itself,  if  the  Christian  Church  supplied  the 
vernacular  and  English  lady  teachers.  Hence  Mr. 
Duff's  conclusion,  as  he  listened  to  the  vaporous  but 
not  insincere  talk  of  these  fledglings  :  '*  Over  the  pre- 


^t.  25-  BENCiALEE    DEBATING    SOCIETIES.  I5I 

sent  (1830-40)  generation  little  or  no  control  can  bo 
exercised  by  tliese  youths.  But  as  time  rolls  on  they 
become  the  heads  of  families  themselves,  and  then  will 
tliey  be  prepared,  in  many  instances  at  least,  to  give 
practical  effect  to  their  better  judgment."  He  dreamed, 
he  talked,  he  almost  lived  to  be  witness  of  "  the  hal- 
cyon period  when  universal  theory  shall  run  parallel 
with  universal  practice,"  in  instructing  the  women  of 
the  great  educational  centres  of  India.  And  we  shall 
see  how  ready  he  was  to  play  his  part  in  the  practice 
when  he  had  done  the  preparatory  work  of  educating 
the  husbands  and  the  fathers. 

It  was  of  societies  whei'e  such  questions  were  dis- 
cussed that  a  vernacular  newspaper  exclaimed,  "  The 
night  of  desolation  and  ignorance  is  beginning  to 
change  its  black  aspect,  and  the  sky,  big  with  fate,  is 
about  to  brinof  forth  a  storm  of  knowledge  which  will 
sweep  those  airy  battlements  away  that  have  so  long 
imprisoned  the  tide  of  thought."  But  social  ques- 
tions were  not  all.  These  were  the  days  when  the  first 
echoes  of  the  English  Beform  Bill  agitation  began  to 
reach  Anglo-Indian  newspapers.  In  the  native  mind 
the  constitutional  progress  of  the  English  Whigs  came 
to  be  mixed  up  with  the  frothy  Bepublicanism  of 
their  familiar  Tom  Paine,  and  the  sensus  communis  of 
Reid  and  the  Scottish  school  of  philosophy  with  that 
blasphemer's  favourite  name  of  "  common  sense." 
An  education  which,  in  the  Grovcrnment  colleges,  long 
after  continued  to  fill  the  memories  of  the  students 
with  the  best — sometimes  with  the  worst — passages 
of  the  English  poets,  had  made  quotation  the  mark  of 
culture  and  elegance  in  a  young  debater.  They  had 
not  mastered  Shakespeare  or  Shelley  as  now,  but  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  Byron  and  even  Ilobert  Burns  were 
their  favourites.  "More  than  once,"  writes  Duff  of 
that  time,  "  were  my  ears  greeted  with  the  sound  of 


152  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  183 1. 

Scotch  rliymcs  from  the  poems  of  Robert  Burns.  It 
would  not  be  possible  to  portray  the  effect  produced 
on  the  mind  of  a  Scotsman,  when,  on  the  banks  of  the 
Ganges,  one  of  the  sons  of  Brahma, — in  reviewing  the 
unnatural  institution  of  caste  in  alienating  man  from 
man,  and  in  looking  forward  to  the  period  in  which 
knowledge,  by  its  transforming  power,  would  make 
the  lowest  type  of  man  feel  itself  to  be  of  the  same 
species  as  the  highest, — suddenly  gave  utterance,  in 
an  apparent  ecstasy  of  delight,  to  these  characteristic 
lines : — 

'  For  a'  that,  and  a'  that, 

Its  comiii'  yet,  for  a'  that, 
That  man  to  man,  the  world  o'er. 
Shall  brothers  be,  for  a'  that.' 

How  was  the  prayerful  aspiration  raised,  that  such  a 
consummation  might  be  realized  in  a  higher  and  nobler 
sense  than  the  poet  or  his  Hindoo  admirer  was  privi- 
leged to  conceive ! " 

But  it  was  time,  after  all  this  experience  of  the 
variously  mixed  material  on  which  he  was  to  work,  to 
come  to  close  quarters  with  Young  Bengal ;  to  build 
a  spiritual  temple  on  the  foundation  thus  cleared 
and  almost  crying  out,  as  in  a  very  similar  transition 
state  the  young  and  erring  Augustine  cried,  "0  Truth, 
Truth  !  how  eagerly  even  then  did  the  marrow  of  my 
soul  pant  after  thee  !  " 

The  traditional  idolaters  and  the  liberal  inquirers 
had  become  separated  farther  and  farther  from  each 
other,  by  that  gulf  which  even  here  marks  off  the  love 
of  the  true  from  the  tendency  to  the  false.  The  liberals 
established  their  own  English  journal,  well  naming  it 
the  Enquirer.  Long  before,  E-ammohun  Roy  had  set 
the  English  llefonner  on  foot ;  but  it  had  committed 
itself  to  reproducing  the  antichristian  attacks  of  Paine 


^t.  25'  ^   '^'^^^    ^^    TKANSITION.  1 53 

after  its  founder  Lad  left  for  England,  and  it  was 
assisted  in  this  by  Englishmen  who  called  them- 
selves Christians.  The  English  of  the  Enqalre)\  and 
the  Bengalee  of  the  Gyananeahun^  week  after  week 
attacked  Ilindooism  and  its  leaders  with  a  courage  and 
skill  that  called  down  on  the  editors  the  execrations  of 
their  countrymen.  But  all  besides  was  negative.  The 
Reform  Bill  was  eagerly  turned  to  in  July,  1831,  for  a 
positive  something  to  rejoice  in  as  the  germ  of  a  new 
reformation  which  would  sweep  away  tyrants  and 
priests.  The  Holy  Congregation's  threat  of  excomnm- 
nication  was  met  with  this  welcome  :  *'  Be  some  hun- 
dreds cast  out  of  society,  they  will  form  a  party,  an 
object  devoutly  to  be  wished  by  us  !  "  The  man  who 
proved  a  more  than  worthy  successor  of  Eammolmn 
Roy  and  sounded  those  trumpet  notes  in  the  EnqiiLver 
was  he  who  is  now  and  has  long  been  the  staid  scholar 
and  the  grave  minister  of  the  Church  of  England,  the 
Rev.  Krishna  Mohun  Banerjea,  LL.D.  Then  he  was 
a  Brahman  of  the  highest  or  Koolin  class,  legally 
entitled  to  marry  all  the  women  who  might  take  hold 
of  him  to  be  called  by  his  name,  and  with  the  cer- 
tainty of  becoming,  in  Hindooism,  a  Pharisee  of  the 
Pharisees. 

Duff  has  himself  told  the  story  of  that  act  by  which 
the  truth-seeking  Koolin  formed  the  party  of  pro- 
gress which  he  desired.  Krishna  Mohun  happened  to 
be  absent  from  a  meeting  of  the  liberal  party  held  in 
his  fiunily  house  on  the  23rd  of  August,  1831. 

"  If  there  be  anything  on  which  a  genuine  Hindoo  is 
taught,  from  earliest  infancy,  to  look  with  absolute 
abhorrence,  it  is  the  flesh  of  the  bovine  species.  If 
there  be  anything  which,  of  itself  singly,  must  at  once 
degrade  a  man  from  his  caste,  it  is  the  known  partici- 
pation of  that  kind  of  food.  Authentic  instances  are 
on  record,  wherein  a  Brahman,  violently  seized  by  a 


154  I-Tl^E    OP  DE.    DUFF.  1831. 

Moslem,  has  had  such  meat  forced  into  his  mouth ; 
and  thougli  deprived  of  voluntary  agency  as  much  as 
the  veriest  automaton,  the  contamination  of  the  touch 
was  held  to  be  so  incapable  of  ablution,  that  the  hap- 
less, helpless,  unwilling  victim  of  intolerance,  has  been 
actually  sunk  along  with  his  posterity  for  ever  into 
the  wretched  condition  of  outcast.  Well,  in  order  to 
furnish  the  most  emphatic  proof  to  each  other  of  their 
•mastery  over  prejudice  and  their  contempt  of  the  ordi- 
nances of  Hindooism,  these  friends  of  liberty  had  some 
pieces  of  roasted  meat,  believed  to  be  beef,  brought 
from  the  bazaar  into  the  private  chamber  of  the 
Enquirer.  Having  freely  gratified  their  curiosity  and 
taste  with  the  unlawful  and  unhallowed  food,  some 
portion  still  remained,  which,  after  the  return  of  the 
Enquirer,  was  thrown,  though  not  with  his  approba- 
tion, in  heedless  and  reckless  levity  into  the  com- 
pound or  inner  court  of  the  adjoining  house,  occupied 
by  a  holy  Brahman,  amid  shouts  of — '  There  is 
beef !  there  is  beef !'  The  sacerdotal  master  of  the 
dwelling,  aroused  by  the  ominous  sound  and  exasper- 
ated at  the  unpardonable  outrage  which  he  soon  found 
had  been  perpetrated  upon  his  feelings  and  his  faith, 
instantly  rushed  with  his  domestics  to  the  quarter 
whence  it  proceeded,  and  under  the  influence  of  rage 
and  horror,  taking  the  law  into  his  own  hands,  he 
violently  assaulted  the  Enquirer  and  his  friends. 

"  Knowing  that  they  had  been  guilty  of  an  action 
which  admitted  of  no  defence  the  latter  confessed 
their  criminality,  uniting  in  apologies  for  the  past 
and  promises  of  amendment  for  the  future.  But 
neither  confession  nor  apology  nor  promise  of  amend- 
ment would  suffice.  Tht  openly  avowed  opinions  and 
conduct  of  the  Enquirer  and  his  friends  had  long  been 
a  public  scandal  and  offence  in  the  eyes  of  their  bigoted 
countrymen;  and,  short  of  formal  excommunication, 


JEt  25.  OASTB    BROKEN   BY  THE    ABOMINATION   OF   BEEF.    1 5  5 

tlioy  were  in  conscqucnco  subjected  to  all  manner  of 
persecution.  But  tlio  crisis — the  hour  of  unmitii,^1te(l 
retribution — had  now  arrived.  Hundreds  speedily 
ralHed  around  the  Brahman,  the  sanctuary  of  whoso 
home  had  been  so  grossly  viohited  by  the  presence  of 
the  abomination  of  abominations.  Inflamed  witii  un- 
controllable indignation,  they  peremptorily  demanded 
of  the  family  of  the  Enquirer  to  disown  him  in  the 
presence  of  competent  witnesses,  under  pain  of  expul- 
sion from,  caste  themselves.  Having  no  alternative, 
his  family  then  called  upon  him  formally  to  recant  his 
errors,  and  proclaim  his  belief  in  the  Hindoo  faith,  or 
instantly  to  leave  the  homo  of  his  youth,  and  be  for 
ever  denuded  of  all  the  privileges  and  immunities  of 
caste.  He  chose  the  latter  extremity.  Accordingly, 
towards  midnight,  without  being  able  to  take  formal 
leave  of  any  of  his  friends,  he  was  obliged  to  take  his 
departure  he  knew  not  whither,  because  he  could  not 
be  prevailed  upon  to  utter  what  he  knew  to  be  false. 
*  "We  left,'  wrote  ho,  *  the  home  where  we  passed  our 
infant  days ;  we  left  our  mother  that  nourished  us  in 
our  childhood ;  we  left  our  brothers  with  whom  wo 
associated  in  our  earliest  days  ;  we  left  our  sisters  with 
whom  we  sympathized  since  they  were  born.'  As  he 
and  his  friends  were  retiring,  the  infuriated  populace 
broke  loose  upon  them,  and  it  was  with  some  difficulty 
they  effected  their  escape  and  found  shelter  in  the 
house  of  an  acquaintance." 

Recovering  from  the  fever  that  followed,  young 
Banerjea  returned  to  the  assault,  but  still  had  no  posi- 
tive truth  to  lean  upon.  "  I  was  perfectly  regardless 
of  God,"  he  wrote  in  the  confessions  of  a  later  time ; 
"  yet,  as  a  merciful  Father,  He  forgot  not  me.  Though 
I  neglected  Him,  yet  He  had  compassion  on  me,  and 
without  my  knowledge  or  inclination  created,  so  to 
speak,  a  circumstance  that  impelled  me  to  seek  after 


156  LIFE   OP  DR.    DUFP,  1831. 

Ilim."  It  was  this.  Unwilling  to  compromise  the  out- 
cast further,  Mr.  DufT  sent  a  native  friend  to  invito 
him  to  his  house.  The  confessions  continue:  "Mr. 
Duff  received  me  with  Cliristian  kindness,  and  in- 
quired of  the  state  in  which  we  all  were.  He  openly 
expressed  his  sentiments  on  what  we  were  about ;  and 
while  he  approved  of  one  half  of  our  exertions  he 
lamented  the  other.  He  was  glad  of  our  proceedings 
against  error  but  sincerely  sorry  at  our  neglecting 
the  truth.  I  told  him  it  was  not  our  fault  that  we 
were  not  Christians ;  we  did  not  believe  in  Christianity, 
and  could  not  therefore  consistently  profess  it.  The 
reverend  gentleman,  with  great  calmness  and  compo- 
sure, said  it  was  true  that  I  could  not  be  blamed 
for  my  not  believing  in  Christianity  so  long  as  I  was 
ignorant  of  it,  but  that  I  was  certainly  guilty  of  serious 
neglect  for  not  inquiring  into  its  evidences  and  doc- 
trines. This  word  'inquiring'  was  so  uttered  as  to 
produce  an  impression  upon  me  which  I  cannot  suffi- 
ciently well  describe.  I  considered  upon  my  lonely 
condition — cut  off  from  men  to  whom  I  was  bound  by 
natural  ties,  and  thought  that  nothing  but  a  determi- 
nation on  the  subject  of  religion  could  give  me  peace 
and  comfort.  And  I  was  so  struck  with  Mr.  Duff's 
words,  that  we  instantly  resolved  to  hold  weekly  meet- 
ings at  his  house  for  religious  instruction  and  discus- 
sion." In  the  Enquirer  he  continued  with  growing 
boldness  : — "  Does  not  history  testify  that  Luther,  alone 
and  unsupported,  blew  a  blast  which  shook  the  man- 
sions of  error  and  prejudice  ?  Did  not  Knox,  opposed 
as  he  was  by  bigots  and  fanatics,  carry  the  cause  of 
reformation  into  Scotland  ?  Blessed  are  we  that  we 
are  to  reform  the  Hindoo  nation.  We  have  blown  the 
trumpet,  and  we  must  continue  to  blow  on.  We  have 
attacked  Hindooism,  and  will  persevere  in  attacking 
it  until  we  finally  seal  our  triumph." 


JEt.  25.  SEEKING   AFTER   GOD.  157 

Persecution  drove  the  reformer  to  a  European  lodg- 
ing-house, for  not  a  native  dared  to  shelter  him.  Tliero, 
after  narrowly  escaping  death  by  poison  at  the  hands 
of  their  outraged  families,  his  associates  found  him. 
And  there  DufF  held  earnest  conference  with  them, 
as  they  debated  the  establishment  of  a  Reformation 
Society,  and  the  only  one  among  them  who  had  large 
property  of  his  own  offered  it  for  the  common  cause. 
But  convinced  that,  without  some  nobler  truths  to 
substitute  for  the  system  they  destroyed,  this  would 
prove  only  an  eradication  society,  the  hot  conspira- 
tors in  the  cause  of  religious  freedom  agreed  to  meet 
in  the  missionary's  house  every  Tuesday,  to  study  the 
claims  of  Christianity  to  bo  such  a  positive  and  life- 
giving  system  as  they  now  desiderated. 

Hence  the  second  course  of  lectures  and  discussions 
was  carried  on  with  ripe  experience  on  the  part  of  Mr. 
DufF,  who  now  preferred  to  keep  it  in  his  own  hands ; 
and  was  delivered  to  really  earnest  truth-seekers,  many 
of  whom  had  fairly  separated  from  the  idolatrous  and 
caste  system  01  their  fathers.  But  still,  at  first,  the 
Enquirer  declared  it  had  no  religious  doctrines  to  pro- 
mulgate, only  "  let  us  have  all  a  fair  field,  and  adopt 
what  reason  and  judgment  may  dictate."  In  a  month 
the  weekly  discussions  had  brought  its  editor  to  the 
admission  that  theological  truth  is  the  most  important 
of  all,  because  of  its  practical  influence  on  life,  and  that 
Christianity  deserves  special  inquiry  as  having  civil- 
ized a  whole  continent.  "  A  reverend  gentleman  of 
the  Presbyterian  sect  has  undertaken  the  task  of  un- 
folding to  us  the  nature  of  this  set  of  doctrines."  Prom 
forty  to  sixty  seekers  after  God  listened  to  each  lecture, 
sat  far  into  the  night  canvassing  its  statements,  and 
either  returned  night  after  night  for  further  inquiry  or 
wrote  out  their  difficulties  for  solution.  The  novelty 
of  the  weekly  meeting  drew  many  spectators,  and  some 


158  LIFE    OP   DE.    DUFF.  X831. 

of  these  professedly  calm  inquirers  proved  to  be  **  proud, 
forward,  rude,  boisterous  and  often  grossly  insulting.'* 
But  those  were  the  exceptions,  and  they  only  stimu- 
lated the  ardour  without  ruffling  the  perfect  courtesy 
of  the  apostolic  teacher,  who  had  a  yearning  sympathy 
with  every  soul  feeling  after  God,  and  knew  that  it  is 
through  much  tribulati^^n  such  must  enter  the  kingdom. 
The  record  of  these  agonizings,  intellectual  and  spirit- 
ual, forms  a  unique  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  apolo- 
getics of  those  days.*  As  tlie  demonstration  of  the 
existence  and  personality  of  the  great  First  Cause  called 
back  the  subtle  spirit  of  the  Bengalee,  steeped  in 
pantheistic  polytheism,  from  its  initial  rebound  into 
nihilismj  the  closing  exhortations,  delivered  with  all 
that  tearful  fervour  which  was  soon  to  summon  the 
Churches  of  the  West  to  a  new  crusade,  led  them  up 
to  the  great  love  of  Christ  and  the  influence  of  the 
Spirit. 

Thus  passed  the  cold  season  of  1831-32  in  Cal- 
cutta. The  work  of  John  the  son  of  Zacharias,  was 
done.  As  his  "Behold  the  Lamb  of  God!"  sent 
Andrew  to  Christ,  and  Andrew  "  first  findeth  his  own 
brother  Simon  .  .  and  he  brought  him  to  Jesus," 
so  was  it  now.  At  the  conclusion  of  the  discussions, 
Mohcsh  Chunder  Ghose,  a  student  of  the  Hindoo 
College,  sent  his  own  brother  to  Mr.  Duff,  with  this 
note : — 

"  If  you  can  make  a  Christian  of  Mm  you  will  have  a 
valuable  one ;  and  you  may  rest  assured  that  you  have  my 
hearty  consent  to  it.  Convince  him,  and  make  him  a  Christian, 
and  I  will  give  no  secret  opposition.  Scepticism  has  made  mo 
too  miserable  to  wish  my  dear  brother  the  same.  A  doubtful- 
ness of  the  existence  of  another  world,  and  of  the  benevolence 
of  God,  made  me  too  unhappy  and  spread  a  gloom  all  over  my 

*  Appendix  to  Lidia  and  India  Missions. 


^t.  25.  THE    riRST   CONVERT.  1 59 

mind ;  but  I  thank  God  that  I  have  no  doubts  at  present.  I 
am  travelling  from  step  to  step ;  and  Christianity,  I  think,  will 
be  the  last  place  wh^re  I  shall  rest;  for  every  time  I  think, 
its  evidence  becomes  too  overpowering/* 

On  the  28tli  August,  1832,  the  Enquirer  announced 
the  baptism  into  Christ  of  Mohesh  himself,  in  an 
article  Avhich  thus  closed :  "  Well  may  Mr.  Duff  be 
happy,  upon  the  reflection  that  his  labours  have, 
through  the  grace  of  the  Almighty,  been  instrumental 
in  convincing  some  of  the  truth  of  Christianity,  and 
others  of  the  importance  of  an  inquiry  into  it.  We 
hope  ere  long  to  be  able  to  witness  more  and  more 
such  happy  results  in  this  country." 

For  some  unexplained  reason  this  first  convert  of 
the  G  cneral  Assembly's  Bengal  Mission  chose  to  receive 
baptism  at  the  hands  of  an  English  chaplain  whom  he 
did  not  know.  li.  is  no  cause  for  regret  that  the  broad 
seal  of  catholicity  was  thus  stamped  on  Mr.  Duff's 
work,  when  his  first  son  in  the  faith  publicly  declared 
his  belief — "  in  spite  of  myself,"  as  he  said — in 
the  triune  God,  in  that  old  mission  church  which 
Kie  lander  had  built  and  Brown  and  Martyn,  Corrie 
and  Dealtry  had  consecrated  by  their  ministrations. 
It  was  thus  that  this  first-fruit  of  his  toil,  in  Mr. 
Duff's  house  and  before  many  witnesses,  after  deep 
silence  burst  forth : — 

"  A  twolvemonth  ago  I  was  an  atheist^  a  materialist,  a 
physical  necessitai'ian ;  and  what  am  I  now?  A  baptized 
Christian!  A  twelve^nonth  ago  Tvas  the  most  miser  tblc  cf 
the  miserable ;  and  what  i.  ■  I  now  ?  In  my  own  mind,  tho 
happiest  of  the  happy.  Whui!  a  change  i  How  has  it  been 
brought  about  ?  The  recollection  of  the  past  fills  me  with 
wonder.  When  I  first  came  to  your  lectures,  it  was  not  in- 
struction I  wanted.  Instruction  was  the  pretext,  a  secret 
desire  to  expose  what  I  reckoned  your  irrational  and  super- 
Btitious  follies  the  reality.     At  last,  against    my  inclinations. 


l6o  LIFE    OF   DE.    DUFF.  1831. 

against  my  feelings,  I  was  obliged  to  admit  the  truth  of 
Christianity.  Its  evidence  was  so  strong  that  I  could  not 
resist  it.  J3ut  I  stWl  felt  contrary  to  what  I  tliongld.  On  hear- 
ing your  account  of  the  nature  of  sin,  and  especially  sins  of  the. 
heart,  my  conscience  burst  upon  me  like  a  volcano.  My  soul 
was  pierced  through  with  horrible  reflections  and  terrible 
alarms  ;  it  seemed  as  if  racked  and  rent  in  pieces.  I  was  in  a 
hell  of  torment.  On  hearing  and  examining  further,  I  began,  I 
knov  not  how  or  why,  to  find  relief  from  the  words  of  the 
Bible.  What  I  once  thought  most  irrational  I  soon  found  to 
be  very  wisdom ;  what  I  once  hated  most  I  soon  began  to 
love  most ;  and  now  I  love  it  altogether.  What  a  change ! 
How  can  I  account  for  it  ?  On  any  natural  principle  I  cannot, 
for  every  step  that  I  was  made  to  take  was  conti'ary  to  my 
previous  natural  wish  and  will.  My  progress  was  not  that  of 
earnest  inquiry,  but  of  earnest  opposition.  And  to  the  last, 
my  heart  was  opposed.  In  spite  of  myself  I  became  a  Christian. 
Surely  some  unseen  power  must  have  been  guiding  me. 
Surely  this  must  have  been  what  the  Bible  calls  'grace,'  free 
grace,  sovereign  grace,  and  if  ever  there  was  an  election  of 
grace  surely  I  am  one.'' 

Krishna  Mohun  Baneijea  himself  was  the  next.  Ho 
desired  that  tlie  lecture  room  in  the  missionary's  house, 
which  had  been  "  the  scene  of  all  my  public  opposi- 
tion to  the  true  religion,  should  also  be  the  scene  of 
my  public  confession  of  it."  He  sought  that  there  his 
still  Hindoo  friends,  who  had  been  strengthened  in  their 
unbelief  by  his  arguments,  might  witness  his  "  public 
recantation  of  all  error  and  public  embracing  of  the 
truth,  the  whole  truth,  as  revealed  in  the  Bible."  The 
Bev.  Mr.  Mackay  opened  that  service  with  prayer. 
Mr.  Duff  addressed  and  thus  interrogated  the  catechu- 
men : — "  '  Do  you  renounce  all  idolatry,  superstition, 
and  all  the  frivolous  rites  and  practices  of  the  Hindoo 
religion  ?  '  To  this  the  Koolin  Brahman  replied :  '  I  do, 
and  I  pray  God  that  He  may  incline  my  countrymen 
to  do  so  likewise.'  The  second  question  was  :  *  Do  you 
believe  in  God  the  Father  and  Creator  of  all,  in  Jesus 


^t.  25.    THE   CONFESSIONS   OF  THE    SECOND   CONVERT.         161 

Christ  as  your  Redeemer,  and  in  His  sacrifice  as  the 
only  means  whereby  man  may  be  saved,  and  in  the? 
sanctifying  influences  of  the  Holy  Spirit  ?  '  To  this, 
with  emotion,  he  replied,  'I  do,  and  I  pray  God  to 
give  me  His  grace  to  do  His  will.'  These  and  other 
questions  being  answered,  Mr.  Duff  administered  the 
ordinance  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  Son  and  Holy 
Ghost ;  and  then  engaged  in  prayer,  the  whole  com- 
pany kneeling."  Such  was  the  description,  in  the  daily 
newspaper  of  Calcutta,  of  the  putting  on  of  the  yoke 
of  Christ  by  the  Koolin  Brahman  who,  like  another 
Saul  of  Tarsus,  had  made  his  name  known  and  dreaded 
among  thousands  of  his  countrymen.  By  a  different 
path  from  that  of  Mohesh  Chunder,  but  along  the  in- 
tellectually thorny  way  of  the  Trinity  from  which 
many  of  his  countrymen  fall  aside  into  their  old  poly- 
theism, Krishna  Mohun  stumbled  on  to  Him  who  is 
the  Way,  the  Truth  and  the  Life.  His  confessions 
have  a  typical  interest  for  more  than  his  own  people 
and  the  students  of  ecclesiastical  annals  : — 

"  My  attention  having  been  particularly  directed  to  the  So- 
cinian  and  Trinitarian  systomSj  I  at  once  felt  more  favourable 
to  the  former  than  the  latter ;  but  not  seeing  anything  in  it  so 
great  that  it  might  reasonably  call  for  the  adoption  of  such 
extraordinary  measures  as  those  which  Jesus  employed  for 
its  rropagation,  I  could  not  yield  my  conviction  to  it.  On 
the  other  hand,  I  understood  not  aright  the  doctrine  of  the 
atonement;  and  on  grounds  of  mere  natural  reason  could 
never  believe  it  to  be  possibly  true.  And  us  the  Bible  pointed 
unequivocally  to  it,  I  strove  to  persuade  myself,  in  spite  of  the 
most  overpowering  external  evidencOj  not  to  believe  in  the 
sacred  volume.  Neither  could  I  be  satisfied  wi'h  the  forced 
interpretation  of  the  Sociuians.  Socinianism,  which  seemed 
little  better  than  Dcism^  I  thought  could  not  be  so  far  above 
human  comprehension  that  God  should  think  of  working  such 
extraordinary  miracles  for  its  establishment.  Accordingly, 
though  the  external  evidences  of  the  truth  of  the  Bible  wera 

M 


1 62  LIFE    OP   DE.    DUFF.  1832. 

overwhelming,  yet,  because  I  could  not,  on  principles  of 
reason,  bo  satisfied  with  either  of  the  two  interpretations  given 
of  it,  I  could  not  persuade  ray  heart  to  believe.  The  doctrines 
of  Trinitarian  Christians,  which  I  thought  were  really  accord- 
ing to  the  plain  import  of  Scripture  language,  were  all  against 
my  feelings  and  inclinations.  Socinianism,  though  consonant 
with  my  natural  pride,  seemed  yet  so  insignificant,  as  a  pro- 
fessed revelation,  that  I  could  not  conceive  how,  with  pro- 
priety, an  all-wise  God  should  work  miracles  for  its  sake.  So 
that  I  remained  in  a  state  of  doubt  and  perplexity  for  a  long 
time ;  till  God,  by  the  influence  of  His  Holy  Spirit,  was  gra- 
ciously pleased  to  open  my  soul  to  discern  its  sinfulness  and 
guilt,  and  the  suitableness  of  the  great  salvation  which  centred 
in  the  atoning  death  of  a  Divine  Redeemer.  And  the  same 
doctrine  of  the  atonement  which,  when  not  properly  under- 
stood, was  my  last  great  argument  against  the  divine  origin 
of  the  Bible,  is  now,  when  rightly  apprehended,  a  principal 
reason  for  mj  belief  and  vindication  of  the  Bible  as  the  pro- 
duction of  infinite  wisdom  and  love/' 


That  baptism  took  place  on  the  17tli  October,  1832. 
In  the  same  class-room,  on  a  Tuesday  evening,  the 
14tli  December,  a  third  cateclmmen  put  on  Christ. 
Gopeenath  Nundi  had  sought  a  morning  interview 
with  Mr.  Duff  in  his  study,  and  there  burst  forth  in 
tears  with  the  cry,  "  Can  I  be  saved  ?*'  He  told  how 
the  last  of  the  lectures  had  driven  him  to  take  counsel 
with  Krishna  Mohun  Banerjea  who  prayed  with  him 
and  sent  him  next  morning  to  the  missionary.  At  first 
imprisoned  by  his  family,  they  cast  him  off  for  ever  by 
advertisement  in  the  newspaper;  but  nothing  could 
shake  his  faith.  Still,  before  the  irrevocable  step  was 
taken,  his  brothers  and  caste-fellows  implored  him  to 
desist,  then  foully  abused  him,  and  then  offered  him  all 
that  wealth  and  pleasure  could  give,  including  even  the 
retaining  of  a  belief  in  Christianity  if  only  he  would 
not  publicly  profess  it.  The  last  appeal  was  in  the 
name  of  his  venerable  mother,  whose  piercing  shriek 


JEt.  36.  THE   THIRD   AND   FOURTH    CONVERTS.  1 63 

none  who  have  seen  a  Bengalee  woman  in  sorrow  can 
forget.  The  scene  has  often  since  been  repeated, 
must  yet  be  again  and  again  w^itnesscd  before  India 
is  Clirist's.  Nature  could  not  remain  unmoved.  Go- 
peeuath  wept,  but  throwing  up  his  arms  and  turning 
hastily  away  he  decided,  "  No,  I  cannot  stay  !  "  Wo 
sliall  meet  the  same  true  martyr's  courage  in  him 
again,  amid  the  captivity  and  the  bloodshed  of  the 
Mutiny  of  1857.     He  proved  faithful  unto  death. 

Nor  was  Anundo  Chund  Mozoomdar  long  left  be- 
hind— the  youth  who  in  the  school  had  been  drawn  by 
the  divine  power  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  He 
had  been  the  first  to  seek  more  detailed  instruction 
in  the  missionary's  house.  He  had  given  up  the 
family  and  caste  and  festival  idol  worship  till  a 
Cashmere  Brahman,  who  had  in  vain  remonstrated 
with  him,  naively  complained  to  Mr.  Duff  himself 
that  the  gods  had  been  blasphemed  by  the  atheist 
Anundo.  Of  a  wealthy  family,  ho  had  declined  to  bo 
married  rather  than  submit  to  the  ritual  of  Hindooism. 
Put  out  of  caste,  he  only  rejoiced  in  the  new-found 
liberty,  when  his  fa^^:r,  an  official  in  Jessoro,  visited 
the  capital.  His  u  cle  had  written  a  vigorous  protest 
against  idolatry,  and  the  father,  though  an  orthodox 
Hindoo  of  what  had  now  begun  to  be  called  the  old 
school,  liberally  accepted  the  position,  and  wrote  to 
Mr.  Duff  to  receive  the  persistent  Anundo  as  his  son  : 
"  Convert  him  in  your  own  way,  and  make  him  your 
follower."  So,  in  St.  Andrew's  Kirk  by  the  junior 
chaplain.  Dr.  Charles,  Anundo  was  baptized,  on  Sun- 
day, the  21st  April,  1833,  before  the  Scottish  con- 
gregation and  many  awe-stricken  spectators.  Whether 
from  the  Hindoo  College  or  from  his  own,  it  was  by 
"the  self -evidencing  power  of  the  word  of  God"  that 
the  joyful  missionary  saw  these,  his  four  spiritual  sons, 
brought  to  the  faith. 


164  LIFE    OF   DR.    DUFF.  1832. 

With  now  confidence  in  liis  own  fearless  attitude 
towards  truth  in  every  form,  and  with  assured  trust  in 
his  system  which  used  all  forms  of  truth  as  avenues 
by  wliich  the  Spirit  of  God  might  be  let  in  on  the 
hoary  superstitions  of  India,  he  set  himself  to  perfect 
his  organization.  For  the  native  church  whicli  he  had 
thus  founded  on  the  one  corner  stone,  and  for  cate- 
chumens, ho  opened  a  private  week-day  class  to  study 
systematicolly  the  doctrines  of  Christ  in  the  minutest 
detail,  and  a  Sunday  class  to  read  the  Scriptures  and 
hold  communion  with  the  Father  in  prayer.  Having 
erected  a  bamboo  and  wicker-work  chapel  for  ver- 
nacular preachin':^-,  he  added  to  that  an  English  ser- 
vice every  Sunday  evening.  For  inquirers  outside 
Christianity,  who  had  yet  been  won  from  atheism, 
he  conducted  successive  courses  of  pubhc  lectures  on 
the  Bible,  on  the  Socinian  controversy,  and  on  mental 
philosophy,  followed  by  open  discussions.  Foiled  at 
these,  many  changed  the  arena  to  the  Bengalee  news- 
paper. But  pursuing  them  there,  Mr.  Duff  adver- 
tised that  he  would  answer  each  hostile  article  in 
good  faith  on  the  next  lecture  night,  a  procedure 
which  gave  a  keen  interest  to  the  controversy  in  native 
society. 

Thus  within  and  without  the  work  went  on,  while 
the  school  was  every  year  developing  into  the  fiimous 
colleo^e  which  it  became  with  the  aid  of  a  colleasfue 
so  able  as  Mr.  Mackay,  and  of  Eurasian  assistants  so 
fiiithful  and  earnest  as  Messrs.  Sunder  and  Pereira. 
The  administrative,  the  statesmanlike  genius  of  Mr. 
Duff,  had  after  its  first  examination  seized  the  advan- 
tage of  making  it  a  still  more  catholic,  central  and 
efficient  institute,  by  uniting  in  its  support  and  man- 
agement all  the  Christian  sects  then  represented  in 
Calcutta.  For  on  the  practical  ground  of  economy  of 
energy  and  strength  of  aggressivvjness.  aS  well  as  on  the 


ALt.  26.     niS    PROJECT   OP   A   UNITED   MISSION    COLLEGE.      1 65 

highest  of  all,  he  ever  desired  unity.  Ho  found  an 
agency  in  the  well-known  Calcutta  Missionary  Con- 
ference. 

Mr.  William  Pearce,  the  generous  and  catholic-minded 
son  of  the  Rev.  Samuel  Pearce  of  J3irmingham,  had,  as 
the  head  of  the  extensive  Baptist  Mi.«f:ion  press,  been 
in  the  Imbit  of  inviting  the  few  Protestant  missionaries 
to  breakfast  on  the  first  Monday  of  every  month. 
The  meeting  was  found  so  pleasant  and  profitable  that 
it  grew  into  a  more  formal  conference  after  breakfast, 
with  devotional  exercises  before  that  meal,  accor(Tiug  to 
the  early  hours  and  pleasant  hospitality  of  Indian  life. 
The  nomination  of  a  secretar}'',  to  take  notes  of  the 
papers  and  conversations,  further  gave  the  gathering 
that  permanence  and  utility  which  it  has  enjojaxl  now 
for  half  a  century.  To  this  body  Mr.  Duff  submitted 
his  plan  of  a  united  college,  such  as  has  recently  been 
carried  out  in  Madras  for  all  Southern  India  and  is 
still  under  discussion  for  Bombay.  For  a  fee  of  ten 
suiUinofS  a  month  Mr.  Duff  declared  his  willinoruoss  to 
receive  the  best  vernacular  pupils  of  the  various  mis- 
sions and  give  them  the  highest  Christian  education. 
All  approved,  and  the  Conference  appointed  a  committee 
to  work  out  the  plan  in  detail.  But,  as  has  often 
happened  since,  the  divisions  of  the  Western  Church 
were  fatal  to  the  growth  of  that  of  India.  Mr.  Duff 
prepared  the  plans  of  a  building  which  would  ac- 
commodate the  students  below,  and  at  least  two  other 
colleagues,  lay  or  clerical,  above.  This  scheme  showed 
a  mastery  of  detail  and  a  foresight  such  as  would  have 
anticipated  the  various  colleges,  comparatively  weaker, 
which  the  missionary  societies  were  afterwards  com- 
pelled to  erect  and  which  they  still  conduct. 

We  survey  with  pain  the  outlines  of  so  stately,  so 
Christlike  a  prospect  for  the  Christianizing  and  civiliz- 
ing of  the  millions  of  our  subjects  in  Bengal,  when  we 


1 66  LIFE   OP  DR.   DUFF.  1832. 

reflect  that  what  was  easy  in  1832  has  still  to  be  at- 
tempted ;  and  why  ?  Because  the  outburst  of  what 
is  in  itself  a  miserable  church  and  state  controversy, 
however  important  to  the  actual  combatants,  made  it 
impossible  for  the  Nonconformist  Churches  to  work 
along  with  the  two  Established  Churches  of  Scotland 
and  England  in  carrying  out  the  last  command  of 
their  common  Lord,  although  their  missionaries  in  the 
front  of  the  battle  were  unanimous  in  the  desire  for 
such  co-operating  unity.  As  Charles  Grant's  far- 
seeing  proposals  of  1792  fell  to  be  made  facts  un- 
consciously by  Duff  in  1830-33,  so  Duff's  have  yet  to 
be  realized,  in  Northern  and  Eastern  India,  by  the 
divided  Churches  of  the  West. 

Rarely  if  ever  in  the  history  of  any  portion  of  the 
Church  at  any  time  since  apostolic  work  ceased  Avith 
John  the  Divine,  has  one  man  been  enabled  to  effect 
such  a  revolution  in  opinion  and  to  sow  the  seeds  of 
such  a  reformation  in  faith  and  life,  as  was  effected  by 
the  first  missionary  of  the  Scottish  Church  in  Bengal 
in  the  three  years  ending  July,  1833.  In  the  form 
of  an  experiment  as  to  the  subordination  of  educa- 
tion to  evangelical  religion,  Duff's  work  was  watched, 
criticised  and  narrowly  weighed,  not  only  by  be- 
nevolent men  but  by  officials  of  all  kinds  throughout 
India.  Towards  the  end  of  1831,  from  the  then  very 
distant  Bombay  there  came  to  Calcutta,  to  study  and 
report  upon  it,  Mr.  Henry  Young,  of  the  civil  service 
of  Western  India.  He  was  a  friendly  supporter  of 
the  Rev.  John  Wilson  there,  who  gave  him  a  letter 
of  introduction  to  Mr.  Duff.  Let  us  obtain  a  few 
glimpses  of  the  state  of  native  society  in  Calcutta  in 
the  sixteenth  month  after  the  opening  of  the  General 
Assembly's  school,  as  given  by  a  broad-minded  layman 
of  great  administrative  experience  as  well  as  Christian 
benevolence. 


iEt.  26.   MU.  H.  YOUNG  ON  TUE  KEVOLUTION  IN  CALCUTTA.     167 

"November  15//i,1831. 

"Dear  Mr.  Wilson, —  .  .  I  availed  myself  on  landing  of 
your  letter  to  Mr.  Dull',  and  lived  with  him  during  the  time  I 
spent  in  Calcutta.  1  have  never  regretted  doing  so,  as  it  lias 
.•itlbrded  me  an  opportunity  of  seeing  much  and  learning  more 
rco-arding  a  class  of  young  men  who,  of  all  others,  engaged 
my  attention  in  that  place ;  and  I  am  sure  you  woul  ^  not  fail 
to  share  in  the  common  interest  felt,  were  you  to  witness  the 
])leasing  progress  they  are  making  under  Mr.  Duff.  The  num- 
ber of  young  men  who,  having  received  a  college  education, 
have  really  thrown  olf  idolatry,  is  very  great ;  but  there  are 
not  above  eight  or  nine  who  come  boldly  forward,  and  bravo 
every  effect  of  the  pride  and  bigotry  of  their  cuiiutryuien.  Of 
these  Krishna  Moliun  Banerjea,  the  editor  of  the  EiK^aircr,  is 
the  most  conspicuous.  He  certainly  leads  the  rest,  and,  by 
t}io  admission  of  all,  is  the  most  sober  and  well  conducted  of 
the  whole.  In  a  conversation  I  had  with  him  the  day  before 
I  left,  he  told  me  there  were  not  more  than  four  upon  whom 
he  could  depend  for  decided  support,  and  who  go  the  full 
length  of  his  own  principles ;  but  he  thinks  the  rest  are  coming 
round,  and  upon  them  he  hopes  principally  to  exert  an  in- 
iluenco  by  means  of  his  paper.  It  must  be  remembered  that 
they  were  formerly  bold,  impetuous  characters,  puffed  up  with 
conceit  of  their  supposed  attainments,  and  forward  in  pro- 
claiming their  atheistical  sentiments.  Now  they  profess  a 
belief  in  the  Supremo  Being,  and  speak  in  the  very  best  tone, 
and  maintain  their  desire  to  judge  nothing  rashly.  They  will 
not,  they  say,  hesitate  to  condemn  and  to  expose  idolatry  and 
the  Brahraanical  impostures,  because  they  are  convinced  of 
the  folly  and  absurdity  of  their  former  belief ;  but  of  Chris- 
tianity they  will  examine  and  inquire,  and  are  ready  to  embrace 
the  truth  wherever  and  whenever  they  see  it. 

"  There  can  be  no  doubt  that,  unaer  God,  they  are  indebted 
for  this  favourable  change  to  Mr.  Duff's  lectures,  and  to  the 
knowledge  they  have  acquired  of  English.  All  the  direct  effects 
of  their  education  at  the  Hindoo  College  have  been,  with  this 
exception,  decidedly  evil;  and  though  it  has  been  overruled  in 
this  instance,  as  far  as  we  can  see,  to  the  furtherance  of  good, 
yet  it  is  only  the  direct  effects  of  that  system  to  which  its 
directors  can  lay  claim.     Mr.  Duff  has  a  school  of  about  150 


1 68  LIFE    OF   DR.    DUFF.  1831. 

boys,  in  which  there  are  some  of  the  higher  class  that  can  now 
road  and  write  with  some  fluency  in  English.  When  they  are 
a  little  farther  advanced  Mr.  Dufl'  will  gradually  instruct  them 
in  the  higher  branches  of  science  and  literature,  and  ground 
them  thoroughly  in  the  evidences  of  religion,  and  go  over 
every  objection  that  the  inlidel  has  made  to  them,  with  a  view 
of  preparing  them  for  a  successful  resistance  to  those  young 
men  whom  tlie  college  is  daily  sending  forth  with  heads  filled 
with  the  subtleties  of  Hume,  etc.  So  that  his  two  objects  at 
present  are  (and  between  these  he  divides  his  time)  :  to  put 
himself  at  the  head  of  the  movement  already  taken  place 
amongst  the  students,  and  gradually  reclaim  them  from  the 
wrong  paths  they  have  taken ;  and  to  train  up  another  set  of 
young  men  who  have  not  been  subject  to  the  disadvantages 
these  have  felt,  who  have  not  lost  the  docility  and  teachable- 
ness so  necessary  in  receiving  the  truth,  and  who,  if  God 
vouchsafe  His  bles?ing,  may  furnish  a  body  of  well  educated 
young  men  of  a  far  superior  order  to  any  that  we  have  yet 
seen  in  India.  This  was  the  proper  object  of  Bishop's  College, 
and  it  has  failed  from  causes  which  are  well  known,  and  which 
arc  fatal  to  the  Buccess  of  every  human  scheme.  Mr.  Duff  is, 
in  lact,  about  to  establish  an  Institute  himself,  the  plan  of  which 
has  been  fully  arranged,  and  has  met  with  the  concurrence 
of  all  hero,  and  which  only  wants  the  sanction  of  the  home 
authorities  to  be  at  once  set  on  foot.  In  the  meantime  this 
school  forms  a  nucleus,  and  has  arisen  unostentatiously  with- 
out exciting  any  great  notice,  and  will  ultimately  furnish  him 
with  a  set  of  students  to  commence  with  who  have  been 
brought  up  under  his  own  eye  and  under  his  own  system, 
which,  I  might  say,  is  a  most  efficient  one.  I  questioned  him 
a  good  deal  about  the  prospect  he  had  of  securing  their  atten- 
dance for  the  period  that  it  would  require  to  go  through  his 
course.  He  said  he  felt,  as  all  others  feel,  how  diflicult  it  was, 
but  that  such  was  the  eagerness  of  the  boys  to  remain,  that  if 
they  could  only  obtain  a  sum  sufficient  for  their  support,  they 
would  resist  every  inducement  held  out  by  their  families  to 
leave  him ;  and  that,  in  fact,  he  had  resolved  in  all  cases  of 
difficulty  to  supply  them  with  funds  himself,  and  he  accord- 
ingly does  so  support  one  or  two  of  them  already.  He  said 
six  or  eight  rupees  a  month  was  ample,  and  that  he  himself 
only  gave  them  four.     The  same  practice  was  found  necessary 


yEt.  25.       ExVGIilSII    THE    MOST   EFFICIENT   INSTRUMENT.       1 69 

at  tbo  Hindoo  College,  and  some  boys  in  the  first  class  now 
receive  from  Government  fifteen  rupees  a  month  ;  and  after  all 
that  can  bo  said  ajj^ainst  the  measure,  I  am  fully  persuaded  of 
its  propriety,  and  hope  that  every  one  will  support  the  system. 

"1  very  soon,  of  course,  came  to  ask  his  opinion  upon  tho 
subject  of  education  generally,  and  stated  our  eircumstauccM 
to  him.  Ho  attributed  the  ill  success  of  scriptural  education 
to  the  imperfect  and  elementary  nature  of  tho  education  given 
and  the  neglect  of  the  English  langungo,  and  seemed  to  havo 
tho  fullest  conviction  of  the  success  of  the  system  he  is  about 
to  pursue  ;  for  to  every  suggestion  about  tho  inutility  and  ill 
success  of  schools,  ho  always  replied  that  he  thought  the  failure 
was  owing  to  tho  not  communicating  a  medium  through  which 
sound  and  enlarged  ideas  respecting  God  and  our  relations  to 
Hiui  might  bo  conveyed,  and  through  which  the  effects  of 
what  education  they  did  receive  might  bo  kept  alive  and 
strengthened.  After  what  I  witnessed  of  the  fi\eility  of  Eng- 
lisli  instruction,  I  could  not  urge  as  an  objection  tho  difliculty 
of  imparting  it,  and,  in  short,  I  came  away  from  Calcutta  fully 
convinced  that  in  neglecting  English  wo  havo  neglected  the 
most  efliicient  instrument  we  could  have  used.  With  all  tho 
young  men  I  have  spoken  to  you  about,  any  person  may  havo 
the  most  free  and  unreserved  comtnuuicatiou  in  our  own 
language ;  and  it  quite  astonished  mo  to  find  how  closely  and 
attentively  they  followed  Mr.  Duff  in  the  most  abstract  and 
metaphysical  discussions,  taking  up  the  weaker  parts  of  an 
argument  with  a  readiness  which  showed  how  fully  they  had 
comprehended  what  was  addressed  to  them.  I  do  net  mean 
that  their  objections  were  always  the  happiest,  but  they  showed 
they  had,  in  the  main,  comprehended  his  arguments,  lie  fully 
concurred  in  all  we  proposed  to  do,  though  I  cannot  say  he 
went  the  length  which  I  havo  hitherto  been  disposed  to  go,  in 
asserting  uni'eservedly  that  knowledge  without  religion  is 
positively  evil. 

"Mr.  Duff's  school  has  not  been  in  operation  sixteen  months, 
and  yet  an  advance  has  been  made  sufficient  to  extort  tho 
praise  of  Mr.  Hare,  who  told  me,  as  he  was  showing  me  the 
college  the  other  day,  that  Mr.  Duff  deserved  credit  for  it.  Let 
us  hear  no  more,  therefore,  of  the  difficulty  of  teaching  them 
English.  I  havo  seen  it  here  in  various  instances  effectually 
surmounted.    The  Hindoo  College  is  a  fine  quadrangular  build- 


170  LIFE   OF   DH.    DUFF.  1831. 

ing,  ilie  inner  area  being  very  small,  so  as  to  give  the  house  the 
shape  of  a  native  building;  I  do  not  say  appearance,  for  it  is 
built  after  a  regular  Grecian  order,  and,  like  most  houses  in 
Calcutta,  is  very  handsome  and  elegant.  The  ground-floor 
students  are  exclusively  eugaged  in  the  study  of  Sanscrit, 
whicli  occupies  them  seven  or  eight  years,  and  one  cannot  help 
grieving  at  the  sad  and  cruel  waste  of  precious  time  and  talent 
at  this  unprofitable  study.  English  has  been  introduced 
recently,  that  is  to  say,  since  the  last  two  or  three  years ;  and 
I  observed  one  class  going  over  a  proposition  of  Euclid,  which 
they  seemed  to  enter  into  con  amove.  The  first  class  had  just 
returned  from  a  lecture  on  some  branch  of  natural  philosophy, 
and  seeing  some  essays  of  their  composing  I  asked  for  one  or 
two,  which  with  some  hesitation  they  granted,  I  was  sur- 
prised to  find  on  my  return  that  one  went  directly  to  refute 
Paley,  and  establish  the  mortality  of  the  soul  and.  the  futility 
of  any  hopes  as  to  futurity.  The  subject  was:  'Is  Paley's 
definition  of  virtue,  viz.,  that  it  is  doing  good  to  mankind  for 
the  sake  of  everlasting  happiness,  correct  ? '  and  the  writer 
contended  that  after  death  the  soul  vanished  into  thin  air,  etc. 
"I  was  fortunate  enough  to  witness,  on  the  Tuesday  before 
I  sailed,  a  missionary  prayer  meeting.  There  were  present  (at 
Mr.  Duff's  in  rotation),  Mr.  Duff,  W.  11.  Pearce,  Yates,  Sandys, 
Percival,  Mackay,  Christie,  G.  Pearce,  T.  Robertson  (chaplain), 
Reichardt,  Lacroix,  Gogerly,  and  two  or  three  others  whom 
I  cannot  recollect.  At  seven  we  met  upstairs  and  engaged  in 
prayer  until  breakfast-time,  when  about  twenty  sat  down. 
After  breakfast  subjects  that  had  been  proposed  at  the  last 
meeting  for  discussion  were  announced,  and  the  sentiments  of 
each  person  present  were  called  for.  The  question  under  dis- 
cussion was,  as  far  as  I  recollect  it,  '  the  relative  importance  of 
itinerant  preaching  as  compared  with  education,  as  a  means  of 
spreading  the  gospel,'  and  the  sense  of  the  meeting  was  ex- 
pressed in  the  three  resolutions  I  alluded  to  in  my  letter  to 
Robert  Money.  The  subject  was  very  well,  as  I  thought,  dis- 
cussed, but  not  exhausted;  and  I  should  like  to  have  proposed 
for  inquiry  next  month,  *  The  origin  and  recorded  success  of 
juvenile  education  as  a  means  of  spreading  the  gospel  in 
heathen  countries.'  The  question,  however,  proposed  by  Mr. 
Mackay  will  perhaps  embrace  this.  There  was  at  least  a  pro- 
portion of  two-thirds  of  the  meeting  present  who  were  engaged 


^t.  25.      HIS   OWN   ESTIMATE   OF   PAST  AND   FUTURE.  171 

directly  in  itinerant  preaching  in,  around,  or  away  from  Cal- 
cutta. Mr.  Lacroix  is  said  to  be  by  far  the  most  ready  and 
effective  preacher,  and  to  draw  crowded  audiences. 

"The  infant  school,  under  Mr.  Macpherson'a  superinten- 
dence, founded  by  the  Bishop  and  conducted  by  a  Mrs.  Wilson, 
flourishes;  so,  I  believe,  does  the  High  School, under  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Macqueen,  who  is  rector;  but  the  Free  School  of  St. 
Jainos\s  parish  is  wretchedly  organized,  and  the  children  are 
almost  parrots.  I  wonder  any  person  neglects  to  introduce  the 
interrogatory  system  of  instruction  ;  no  other  deserves,  I  think, 
support.  I  must  not  omit  to  say  that  the  day  before  I  left, 
Tarachund  Chukurbutee,  the  leader  of  the  Moderates  (as  they 
are  called  who,  renouncing  idolatry,  yet  fall  short  of  the 
decision  and  uncompromising  spirit  of  Banerjea  and  others), 
called  upon  Mr.  Duff  and  promised  to  attend  with  several  of 
his  friends  at  Mr.  Duff's  lectures.  This  was  a  subject  of  great 
delight  to  us  all,  as  they  had  hitherto  declined  to  mix  with  the 
Ultras  (as  they  are  styled),  and  feared  to  compromise  their 
worldly  interests." 

Three  months  after  Mr.  Younoj's  visit  wo  find  Mr. 
Duff's  own  Immble  estimate  of  the  results,  but  far- 
reaching  statement  of  an  unconquerable  faith,  in  two 
letters  to  the  Rev.  Professor  Ferrie,  of  Kilconquhar  : — 

"  Calcutta,  dth  January,  1832. 
"  Here  there  is  little  change :  much  work  of  preparation 
silently  cai'ried  on,  little  of  the  practical  work  of  conversion 
from  dumb  idols  to  serve  the  living  God.  We  cannot  over- 
estimate the  worth  of  an  immortal  soul,  and  should  one 
be  found  cleaving  to  the  Saviour  steadfastly  and  immov- 
ably we  cannot  rejoice  too  much  or  ascribe  too  much  glory 
to  God.  But  methinks  that,  considering  the  millions  still 
unreclaimed,  our  joy  should  be  tempered  and  our  glorying 
moderated,  lest  the  one  should  be  found  to  be  mere  self- 
gratulation  and  the  other  a  vain  boastfulness.  How  I 
fear  that  much,  far  too  much,  has  been  made  of  partial 
success  in  the  work  of  conversion,  and  that  many  good  people 
at  home  are  under  serious  delusion  as  to  its  extent.  Every- 
thing around  me  proves  the  necessity  of  more  earnest  prayer 


172  LIFE   OF   DE.    DUFF.  1832. 

and  redoubled  exertion.  I  see  nothing  to  satisfy  me  that  any 
decisive  victory  has  been  won  on  the  grand  scale  of  national 
emancipation.  The  few  converts  that  have  been  made  can 
never  be  the  seed  of  the  Church  :  they  resemble  rather  those 
somewhat  imseasonable,  somewhat  short-lived  germs  which 
start  up  under  the  influence  of  a  few  peculiarly  genial  days 
in  winter — an  indication  of  the  seminal  power  of  mother  earth, 
and  a  token  of  what  may  be  expected  in  spring.  Let  us  not 
then  confine  our  views  to  the  few  shrivelled  sprouts  of  a  mild 
winter ; — for  these  let  us  be  thankful,  as  they  tend  to  revive  our 
hopes  and  reanimate  our  sinking  spirits.  But  let  us  reach 
forward  with  restless  longing  and  unceasing  efibrt  to  the  full 
glow  and  life  and  verdure  of  spring,  when  the  whole  earth 
shall  be  loosened  from  its  cold  torpor  and  the  heavens  pour 
down  refreshing  floods.  It  is  not  easy  in  Calcutta  to  congre- 
gate a  decent  audience  to  listen  to  Bengalee  preaching.  The 
people  are  naturally  apathetic,  and  here  there  is  superadded 
such  pervading  avarice,  such  moiiey-making  selfishness,  that  it 
is  difficult  to  secure  any  degree  of  attention,  or  even  to  excite 
any  alarm  for  the  safety  of  their  own  religion.  Thousands 
there  are,  in  fact,  who  cannot  be  said  to  have  any  religion  at 
all.  Preaching  generally  becomes  either  a  conversation,  or  a 
discussion  in  which  the  most  arrant  frivolities  in  argument  are 
reiterated  with  an  obstinacy  that  wastes  precious  time,  and 
wholly  impedes  the  free  deliverance  of  truchs  that  might 
quicken  the  conscience  and  save  the  soul  i'Jive.  More,  gener- 
ally speaking,  can  be  done  by  way  of  direct  preaching  in 
Bengalee  in  the  neighbourhood  than  in  the  town  of  Calcutta, 
though  I  think  that  missionaries  have  often  too  readily  given 
way  to  the  accumulation  of  acknowledged  difficulties  to  be 
encountered  in  town.  To  desert  it  is  like  abandoning  one 
of  the  enemy's  strongest  holds  and  allowing  him  to  occupy  it 
undisturbed. 

"  My  labours  in  Bengalee  preaching  have  hitherto  been  ne- 
cessarily very  limited.  But  there  is  a  sphere  now  partially 
occupied,  formerly  almost  unattempted :  there  is  the  instituting 
of  English  schools  under  a  decidedly  Christian  management, 
End  insisting  on  the  inculcation  of  Christian  truths.  The  field 
may  become  one  of  the  richest  in  bearing  luxuriant  fruits. 
We  only  want  the  necessary  funds  and  qualified  agents.  The 
success  that  has  attended  the  large  school  first  established  has 


JEt  26.  THE    VARIED   WORK   IN    CALOUTTA.  1 73 

infused  a  kind  of  new  stimulus  into  the  minds  of  those  most 
interested  in  the  Christian  education  of  the  natives,  and  in 
that  alone  much  real  good  has  been  achieved.  The  work  is 
excessively  laborious  and  not  a  little  expensive,  but  time  will 
show  its  vast  importance.  I  trust  that  you  are  acquainted 
with  the  various  proposals  already  irwarded  to  the  Assembly's 
committee.  I  crave  your  special  attention  to  the  last,  as  being 
perhaps  one  of  the  most  momentous  that  has  ever  been  for- 
warded from  a  heathen  land,  referring  chiefly  to  a  union  of  all 
denominations  in  the  support  of  a  Central  Institution  for  the 
more  advanced  literary  and  religious  education  of  promising 
native  youth;  and  to  be  under  the  exclusive  control  of  the 
Assembly's  committee.  I  refer  you  again  to  the  printed  pro- 
posals sent  homo,  and  expect  your  powerful  advocacy  of  tho 
measure. 

"Thousands  can  now  talk  English  tolerably  well.  Amongst 
those  I  labour  a  good  deal,  as  this  class,  being  of  the  better 
sort,  has  generally  been  neglected.  For  the  last  two  or  three 
months  I  have  been  delivering  a  course  of  lectures  on  the 
evidences  of  natural  and  revealed  religion,  to  about  fifty 
of  the  more  advanced  young  men  who  have  been  educated 
at  the  Hindoo  College,  as  well  as  of  the  class  of  East 
Indians  who  have  received  a  competent  education.  On  the 
whole  the  eff'ect  is  pleasing.  Much  discussion  takes  place  at 
times,  but  in  tho  end  objections  have  hitherto  been  withdrawn. 

"  Our  church  still  droops.  Were  an  acceptable  preacher  to 
officiate  regularly  it  might  yet  be  in  some  degree  recovered 
from  its  degradation.  I  preach  occasionally,  and  perceive  clearly 
that  many  are  willing  to  attend,  and  under  a  different  state  of 
things  would,  but  refuse  at  present  on  the  presentation  of  a  plea 
which  they  hold  to  be  sufficient.  Consequently  many  have  joined 
other  communions  permanently,  many  temporarily,  and  many 
live  without  the  stated  administration  of  ordinances.  In  this 
way  that  which  once  was  a  united  community  is  now  severed  into 
fragments ;  and  that  aid  which  would  once  hav3  been  and  now 
might  be  affoi'ded  can  no  longer  be  expected.  Oh  let  us  have 
a  pious  and  talented  successor  to  Dr.  Brown,  and  much  may 
yet  be  done.  Another  of  the  same  stamp  when  the  present 
incumbent  retires,  and  a  vast  deal  may  be  done  towards  re- 
storing our  Zion.  Such  appointments  would  immensely  profit 
the  Assembly's  Mission.     Mr.  Mackay,  if  he  enjoy  good  health. 


174  I-IFB   OP  TR.    DUFF.  1834. 

will  do  well.  But  he  does  not  appear  to  be  strong,  nor  capable 
of  untiergoing  much  bodily  fatigue,  nor  exertion  in  speech,  all 
of  which  is  so  essential  to  the  active  discharge  of  a  missionary's 
duties.  I  wish  the  committee  would  bear  in  mind  that  a 
constitutional  vigour  of  body  is  just  as  requisite  as  a  vigorous 
activity  of  mind,  and  piety  and  learning.  Indeed  it  is  not 
studying  men  that  we  want,  but  hard-woi'king  men  who  have 
been  and  still  are  students." 

"  Feb.,  1834. — Awakened  by  the  pleasing  success  which  has 
attended  our  humble  efforts  in  Calcutta,  some  zealous  friends 
at  home,  as  I  hear,  are  beginning  to  think  tliat  a  new  station 
might  be  opened.  Now,  let  me  say  at  once  that  notliing 
would  prove  more  disastrous.  Of  all  stations  in  India  Cal- 
cutta is  by  far  the  most  important.  Its  population  is  a  vast 
motley  assemblage  or  congregation  of  persons  from  all  parts  of 
Eastern  Asia.  Of  course  the  natives  of  Bengal  greatly  predom- 
inate, and  next  to  these,  immigrants  from  all  the  provinces  of 
Gangetic  India.  A  revolution  of  opinion  here  would  be  felt 
moi'o  or  less  throughout  the  Eastern  world,  and  particularly 
among  the  millions  that  are  the  victims  of  idolatrous  delusion 
and  Brahmanical  tyranny.  It  is  of  no  ordinary  importance, 
therefore,  to  make  Calcutta  the  grand  central  station  for  con- 
ducting missionary  operations  on  an  extended  scale.  But  we 
require  a  score  more  labourers,  and  if  we  had  two  score 
Calcutta  alone  and  its  neighbourhood  would  afford  abundant 
scope  for  their  best  efforts  for  at  least  several  years  to  come. 
It  has  hitherto  been  a  radical  error  in  the  organization  of 
missions,  to  scatter  the  pioneers  and  so  dilute  and  fritter  away 
their  strength,  instead  of  concentrating  their  efforts  on  some 
well-chosen  field.  I  sincerely  trust  that  this  is  an  error  which 
the  committee  of  Assembly  will  endeavour  to  avoid,  and  that 
all  their  aim  will  be  for  years  directed  towards  the  strengthen- 
ing of  the  Calcutta  station. 

"  I  perceive  it  was  stated  in  the  last  AsL^embly  by  Mr. 
Thomson,  of  Perth,  that  the  Assembly's  Institution  should 
always  remain  a  mere  school.  No  remark  has  astounded  me 
more  for  many  a  year — the  utter  ignorance  which  it  betrays 
of  the  wants  of  this  people  and  the  most  probable  means  of 
supplying  these  with  success  !  If  it  is  to  continue  a  mere 
school,  then  I  say  that  all  the  time,  money  and  labour  hitherto 
expended  on  it  have  been  thrown  away  for  nought.     Instead 


JEt  28.  AN  EFFICIENT  COLLEGJ]  AND  NOT  A  MERE  SCHOOL.   I  75 

of  being  an  apparatus  which  God  might  bless  as  the  means 
of  leading  heathens  to  the  way  ot  salvation  through  Ciirist,  it 
would  be  much  more  likely  to  become  a  machine  for  trans- 
forming superstitious  idolaters  into  rogues  and  infidels.  It 
has  been  entirely  overlooked  that  in  this  country  there  is  a 
gigantic  system  of  error  to  bo  rejected  ere  a  system  of  truth 
can  be  embraced  j  and  the  few  years  which  a  boy  can  spend 
at  a  mere  school  can  barely  suffice  to  open  his  mind  to  tho 
absurdity  and  irrationality  of  tho  religion  of  his  ancestors,  a 
religion  that  closely  intertwines  itself  with  every  feeling  and 
faculty  of  the  soul,  with  every  habit  and  every  action  of  life. 
But  supposing  that  in  a  mere  school  you  could  succeed  in 
overthrowing  Hindooism  and  in  inculcating  much  of  tho 
knowledge  of  Christianity,  still  if  the  boy  be  not  confirmed 
in  any  belief,  and  you  turn  him  adrift  amid  a  multitude  of 
heathens  the  most  licentious  and  depraved  under  the  sun, 
what  must  be  the  consequence  ?  I  can  only  say  from  ex- 
perience, that  his  latter  end  must  be  in  all  respects  worse 
than  the  first. 

"  Our  only  encouragement  is  the  hope  of  being  ablo  to  in- 
duce a  certain  proportion  of  %ose  wlio  enter  as  boys  to  remain 
with  us  till  they  reach  the  age  of  puberty,  and  consequentlj'", 
attain  that  maturity  of  judgment  which  may  render  know- 
ledge, through  God^s  blessing,  operative  and  impressions 
lasting.  Anrl  were  there  no  reasonable  hope  of  securing  this 
end,  I  wot.i  .vithout  hesitation  say,  'the  sooner  you  abandon 
the  school,  the  better.'  I,  for  one,  could  not  lend  myself 
as  an  instrument  in  wasting  the  funds  of  the  benevolent 
in  Scotland  in  teaching  young  men  a  mere  smattering  of 
knowledge,  to  enable  them  to  become  more  mischievous  pests 
to  society  than  they  would  have  been  in  a  state  of  absolute 
heathenism.  On  the  other  hand,  if  out  of  every  ten  that  enter 
the  school  even  one  were  to  advance  to  the  higher  branches 
of  secular  and  Christian  education ;  were  he  to  become  in  head 
and  in  heart  a  disciple  of  the  Lord  Jesus ;  and  were  a  number 
with  minds  thus  disciplined,  enlai'ged,  and  sanctified,  to  go 
forth  from  the  Institution,  what  a  leaven  would  be  infused 
through  the  dense  mass  of  the  votaries  of  Hindooism !  And 
what  a  rich  and  ample  reward  for  all  one's  labours,  what  a 
glorious  return  for  all  the  money  expended  !  I  look  to  you, 
my  dear  sir,  as  one  whose  superior  discernment  ran  penetrate 


176  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1833. 

this  subject^  and  expose  the  erroneous  views  of  such  zealous 
but,  in  this  instance,  mistaken  men  as  Mr.  Thomson  of  Perth. 
''The  school  continues  greatly  to  flourish.  You  may  form  some 
notion  of  what  has  been  done,  when  I  state  that  the  highest 
class  read  and  understand  any  English  book  with  the  greatest 
ease;  write  and  speak  English  with  tolerable  fluency;  have 
finished  a  course  of  geography  and  ancient  history;  have  studied 
the  greater  part  of  the  New  Testament  and  portions  of  the  Old  ; 
have  mastered  the  evidence  from  prophecy  and  miracles  ;  have, 
in  addition,  gone  through  the  common  rules  of  algebra,  three 
books  of  Euclid,  plane  trigonometry  and  logarithms.  And  I 
venture  to  say  that,  on  all  these  subjects,  the  youths  that  com- 
pose the  first  class  would  stand  no  unequal  comparison  with 
youths  of  the  same  standing  in  any  seminary  in  Scotland. 
Other  labours  progress  apace.  My  Tuesday  evening  lectures 
on  the  evidences  and  doctrines  of  Christianity  are  still  con- 
tinued. God  has  been  pleased  to  bless  them  for  the  conver- 
sion of  a  few,  and  the  obstinacy  of  many  minds  has  been  shaken. 
On  Sunday  evening  T  preach  also  in  English  to  considerable 
numbers  in  a  small  native  chapel.  There  is  cercainly  much  to 
encourage,  while  there  is  much  also  to  damp  one's  zeal. 
Believe  me,  the  people  at  home  have  far  too  exalted  an  idea  of 
what  has  been  done  in  India.  Still,  much  has  been  done  ;  and 
that  draws  out  the  hope  of  soon  doing  still  more.  Let  us  not 
rest  till  the  whole  of  India  be  the  Lord's." 

In  all  this  warfare  of  the  young  apostle  against  the 
hoary  citadel  of  Brabmanism,  and  in  the  retreat  of 
tliG  foremost  of  its  men  into  the  slough  of  theoretical 
atheism  and  practical  immorality,  or  of  vague  theism 
and  a  dead  ethics,  we  have  seen  the  divine  influence 
at  work.  To  Calcutta  and  Bengal,  as  once  to  Je- 
rusalem and  Syria,  Christ  was  being  manifested  to 
destroy  the  works  of  the  devil.  We  must  now  look 
more  closely  at  the  human  instrument  He  had  chosen 
through  which  to  pronounce  the  wonder-working  spell, 
not  only  in  the  native  city  and  for  that  generation, 
but  over  all  India  and  Southern  Asia  and  for  the 
ages   to  come.      It  was   the  Greek   tongue   and   the 


JEt.  2J.  THE    ENGLISH    LANGUAGE.  1 77 

Roman  order  in  that  which  was  to  all  the  race  the 
fulness  of  the  ages.  In  India  the  set  time  came  with 
the  English  language,  with  the  legislation  and  the 
administration,  the  commerce  and  the  civilization  of 
the  British  people.  The  Missionary  had,  thus  far, 
done  his  work.  The  Governor-General  in  Council 
must  now  do  his. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

1833-1835. 

TEE   BENAISSANOE    IN   INDIA. TEE    ENGLISH 

LANGUAGE  AND  TEE  GEUBCH. 

Lord  William  Bontinck  ready. — The  Charter  of  1833. — Macaulay'a 
share  in  that  and  in  the  Reform  Act. — His  Contrast  of  Calcutta 
and  Edinburgh. — Sir  Charles  Trevelyan  becomes  his  Brother-in- 
Law. — Trevelyan's  Alliance  with  Duff. — The  Growth  of  a  Vicious 
Orientalism  alter  Lord  Wellesley. — Lord  Minto. — Bishop  Heber. 
— The  Prinseps  and  W.  H.  Macnaghten. — The  Anglicists. — Mr. 
B.  H.  Hodgson  and  the  Varnacularists. — Duff's  Experience  as  a 
Celtic  Highlander. — James  Mill. — Macaulay's  Famous  Minute. — 
The  Missionary's  Greatest  Ally. — Decree  of  Lord  William  Ben- 
tinck's  Government. — Sir  C.  Trevelyan's  Account  of  Duff's 
Triumph. — Duff's  Modest  Narrative. — His  Regard  for  True 
Oriental  Scholarship. — Vindicates  the  Government  Decree. — 
Shows  where,  from  political  expediency,  it  failed. — Eloquent 
Application  to  the  Church  of  Canning's  Peroration  on  the  New 
World. — Macaulay's  Revival  of  Letters  and  Duff's  Indian  Refor- 
mation begun. 

Lord  William  Bentinck  was  ready.  He  had  enjoyed 
wliat  some  call  the  drawbacks,  but  all  true  men  pro- 
nounce to  be  the  real  advantage,  of  being  a  younger 
son.  The  second  son  of  the  third  Duke  of  Portland, 
Lord  William  Cavendish  Benfcinck  was  thrust  out  into 
positions  where  he  developed  for  the  good  of  human- 
ity all  those  virtues  and  that  ability  which  had  made 
Hans  William,  the  founder  of  the  house,  second  only 
to  his  friend  William  III.  as  a  benefactor  of  Great 
Britain.  Because,  while  still  under  thirty,  he  hap- 
pened to  be  Governor  of  Madras  when  the  family  of 
Tippoo  provoked  the  mutiny  of  Vellore,  Lord  William 


/Et  27.  LORD   WILLIAM   BENTINCK.  1 79 

Bcntinck  was  recalled  by  the  Court  of  Directors  for 
cxacly  the  same  avowed  reason  which  caused  their  own 
extinction  after  the  Mutiny  of  1857.  In  the  interval 
before  his  return  to  India  as  Governor-General  the 
young  administrator  secured  a  constitution  for  Sicily, 
and,  in  1814,  he  would  have  restored  the  old  republic 
of  Genoa  but  for  Lord  Castlereagh's  stupidity.  It 
was  one  of  the  many  merits  of  George  Canning  that, 
during  his  too  brief  term  as  Prime  Minister,  ho  sent 
Lord  William  Bentinck  to  govern  all  India.  Alroady, 
when  Duff  landed,  had  the  new  Governor-General 
spent  two  of  the  seven  years  which  have  marked 
the  page  of  British  India  with  triumphs  hardly  less 
brilliant  than  those  of  the  Marquis  Wellcsley,  and 
paralleled  only  by  the  later  achievements  of  the  Marquis 
of  Dalhousie.  Had  he,  as  he  washed,  been  appointed 
the  immediate  successor  of  Lord  Hastings,  instead 
of  the  weak  Amherst,  it  is  difficult  to  decide  whether 
he  would  have  prepared  the  way  for  Duff's  mission  of 
positive  Christian  truth  and  educational  progress,  or 
whether  his  lofty  benevolence  would  not  have  failed, 
like  other  premature  ideals,  for  want  of  the  concurring 
aids  of  a  ready  man  and  a  ripe  time.  As  it  was,  it  was 
well  that  the  purely  educational,  literary  and  scien- 
tific reforms  of  his  Government  fell  at  the  end  of 
his  s-even  years'  career  in  the  highest  ofl&ce  which  any 
man  can  fill  next  to  that  of  Premier  of  the  United 
Kingdom. 

It  was  well  also  that  to  the  work  of  Duif  and  the 
legislative  and  administrative  measures  of  Bentinck, 
applying  the  principles  and  results  of  that  work  to  all 
India  and  for  all  time,  there  were  added  the  indispens- 
able co-operation  and  the  supreme  sanction  of  the 
British  people  through  Parliament.  For  the  first 
fruit  of  the  Reform  Act  of  1832  was  the  East  India 
Company's  charter  of  1833.     That  charter  withdrew 


l8o  LIFE   OF    DR.    DUFF.  1833. 

tlie  last  obstructions  to  the  work  of  Duff  and  of  every 
settler  in  India,  missionary  or  journalist,  merchant  or 
planter,  teacher  or  captain  of  labour  in  any  form.  It 
converted  the  Company  into  a  purely  governing  body, 
under  a  despotic  but  most  benevolent  constitution  so 
well  fitted  for  the  freedom  and  the  elevation  of  loner- 
oppressed  races  that  the  most  democratic  of  English 
thinkers,  Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill,  has  declared  the  sys- 
tem to  bo  the  best  ever  devised.  That  charter  has  tho 
additional  merit  of  giving  men,  as  well  as  rendering 
possible  a  constitutional  system,  to  India.  It  added 
a  law  member  to  the  Governor-General's  council  or 
cabinet,  then  of  five,  and  created  a  commission  to 
prepare  codes  of  law  and  procedure  such  as  havo 
come  next  only  to  Christianity  itself,  from  which  they 
spring,  in  their  humanising  and  elevating  influence. 
To  mention  no  others,  these  four  men.  Lord  Macaulay, 
Sir  Barnes  Peacock,  Sir  Henry  S.  Maine  and  Sir 
James  F.  Stephen  have  together  done  more  for  tho 
varied  races  and  the  corrupting  civilizations  of  tho 
peoples  of  India  than  the  jurists  of  Theodosius  and 
Justinian  effected  for  Europe,  or  the  Code  Napoleon 
for  modern  France. 

The  eloquence  of  the  young  Macaulay  in  carrying 
the  Reform  Act  resulted  in  his  appointment  as  one  of 
the  commissioners,  and  then  as  the  secretary,  under 
Lord  Glenelg  and  along  with  Sir  Robert  Grant,  of 
the  Board  of  Control.  He  was  the  master  of  the 
Court  of  Directors  for  eighteen  months,  and  they  for 
some  time  opposed  his  nomination  as  the  new  law 
member.  Was  not  the  charter  of  1833  his  doing,  and 
was  he  not,  at  thirty-three,  in  their  eyes  an  intolerably 
conceited  person  ?  Six  years  older  than  his  country- 
man and  fellow  Highlander,  of  whose  doings  he  could 
not  help  being  officially  cognisant,  little  did  he  think 
that  without  himself  the  revival  of  letters  and  of  faith, 


^t.  2  7-  MACAULAY    GOES    TO   CALCUTTA.  l8l 

brought  to  tlio  birth  by  the  young  missionary,  could 
not  bo  perfected.  So  it  is  that  God  works  by  many 
and  apparently  incompatible  instruments.  For  Ma- 
caulay  was  ever  the  apostle  of  the  old  Whig  neutrality 
in  religion,  whether  in  India  or  in  Ireland,  although 
his  whole  boyhood  had  been  steeped  in  the  discussions 
of  his  father,  of  the  Clapham  men  and  Hannah  More  on 
the  evangelization  of  the  Hindoo  and  the  Negro  alike. 
It  was  not  till  June,  1834,  that  Macaulay  reached 
Madras  to  join  the  Governor-General,  then  at  the 
Ncclgherry  hills,  while  he  sent  his  sister  on  to  Cal- 
cutta, there  to  be  the  guest  of  Lady  William  Bentinck. 
Duff  had  just  left  India  stricken  down  by  almost  deadly 
disease  as  we  shall  see,  when  in  sultry  September  the 
Honourable  the  Law  Member  o*  Council  took  up  his 
abode,  under  a  salute  of  fifteen  guns,  in  what  is  still 
the  best  of  the  Chowringhee  palaces,  the  Bengal  Club. 
But  none  the  less,  Macaulay's  greatest  Avork — greater 
than  even  his  penal  code  and  his  Warren  Hastings 
and  Clive  essays — was  to  be  the  legislative  comple- 
tion of  the  young  Scottish  missionary's  policy.  Yet 
Macaulay  was  never  happy  during  his  brief  Indian  resi- 
dence of  three  and  half  years.  He  did  not  know  the 
magnitude,  he  had  not  his  father's  faith  to  realize  tho 
consequences,  of  the  educational  work  between  which 
and  a  re-reading  of  nearly  all  the  best  Greek  and  Latin 
authors  he  divided  his  leisure.  In  1854,  when  Sir 
Barnes  Peacock  completed  his  penal  code,  Macaulay 
wrote  to  his  sister,  "  Had  this  justice  been  done  sixteen 
years  ago  I  should  probably  have  given  much  more  at- 
tention to  legislation  and  much  less  to  literature  than 
I  have  done.  I  do  not  know  that  I  should  have  been 
either  happier  or  more  useful  than  I  have  been."  And 
in  the  glorious  cold  season  of  Bengal,  so  early  as 
December,  1834,  he  had  thus  sighed  out  his  "heim- 
weh"  to  Mr.  Macvey  Napier,  of  Edinburgh  :  "Calcutta 


l82  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1834. 

is  called,  and  not  without  some  reason,  *the  city  of 
palaces ; '  but  I  have  seen  nothing  in  the  East  like  the 
view  from  the  Castle  Rock,  nor  expect  to  see  anything 
like  it  till  we  stand  there  together  again." 

There  was  a  third  official,  the  warm  personal  zeal 
of  whose  co-operation  drew  him  clc'^r  to  Duff  than 
the  two  rulers,  without  whom  his  energizings  could 
not  have  been  either  so  abiding  or  so  imperial  in  their 
consequences — Charles  Trevelyan.  Like  Sir  Henry 
Durand  at  a  later  date,  he  had  been  compelled  by 
public  duty  to  report  to  Government  the  malversa- 
tion of  a  high  civilian,  an  offence  happily  rare  since 
Clive's  reforms.  But  Macaulay  himself  tells  the 
story : — 


tt 


Trevelyan  is  almost  eight-and-twenty.  He  was  educated 
at  the  Charterhouse,  and  then  went  to  Haileybury,  and  came 
out  hither.  In  this  country  he  has  distinguished  himself 
beyond  any  man  of  his  standing,  by  his  great  talent  for 
business;  by  his  liberal  and  enlarged  views  of  policy;  and 
by  literary  merit,  which,  tor  his  opportunities,  is  considerable. 

He  was  at  first  placed  at  Delhi  under ,  a  very  powerful 

and  a  very  popular  man,  but  extremely  corrupt.  This  man 
tried  to  initiate  Trevelyan  in  his  own  infamous  practices.  But 
the  young  fellow's  spirit  was  too  noble  for  such  things.    When 

only  twenty-one  years  of  age  he  publicly  accused ,  then 

almost  at  the  head  of  the  service,  of  receiving  bribes  from  the 
natives.  A  perfect  storm  was  raised  against  the  accuser.  Ho 
was  almost  everywhere  abused  and  very  generally  cut.  But, 
with  a  firmness  and  ability  scarcely  ever  seen  in  any  man  so 
young,  he  brought  his  proofs  forward,  and  after  an  inquiry  of 

some  weeks  fully  made  out  his  case.     was  dismissed  in 

disgrace,  and  is  now  living  obscurely  in  England.  The 
Government  here  and  the  directors  at  home  applauded 
Trevelyan  in  the  highest  terms,  and  from  that  time  he  has 
been  considered  as  a  man  Hkely  to  rise  to  the  very  top  of  the 
service. 

"  Trevelyan  is  a  most  stormy  reformer.   Lord  William  said  to 
me,  before  any  one  had  observed  his  attentions  to  Nancy :  '  That 


^t.  28.  SIR   CnARLES   TREVELYAN.  1 83 

man  is  almost  always  on  the  right  side  in  every  question ;  and 
it  is  well  that  it  is  so,  for  he  gives  a  most  confounded  deal  of 
trouble  when  he  happens  to  take  the  wrong  one.'  He  is  quite 
at  the  head  of  that  active  party,  among  tho  younger  servants 
of  the  Company,  who  take  tho  side  of  improvement.  In  par- 
ticular, he  is  the  soul  of  every  scheme  for  diffusing  education 
among  the  natives  of  this  country.  His  reading  has  been 
very  confined  j  but  to  the  little  that  he  has  read  he  has 
brought  a  mind  as  active  and  restless  as  Lord  Brougham's, 
and  much  more  judicious  and  honest.  .  .  He  has  no  small 
talk.  His  mind  is  full  of  schemes  of  moral  and  political  im- 
provement, and  his  zeal  boils  over  in  his  talk.  His  topics,  oven 
in  courtship,  are  steam  navigation,  the  education  of  the  natives, 
the  equalization  of  the  sugar  duties,  the  substitution  of  the 
Eoman  for  the  Arabic  alphabet  in  the  oriental  languages."* 

Trevelyan  had  not  been  a  week  in  Calcutti  when,  in 
1831,  he  threw  himself  into  the  different  movements 
originated  by  Duff".  In  their  first  interview  the  two 
young  men  soon  found  themselves  absorbed  in  this 
question  of  all  others — the  advantage,  the  positive 
necessity  of  using  the  English  language  as  the  medium 
of  all  Christianizing  and  civilizing,  all  high  educational 
and  administrative  efforts  by  its  rulers  to  reach  the 
natural  aristocracy  and  leaders  of  the  people,  and 
through  them  to  feed  the  vernaculars  and  raise  the 
masses.  Duff^s  plans,  his  experience,  his  success,  were 
not  only  accomplished  facts,  but  had  been  then  for 
twelve  months  the  talk  and  the  imitation  of  every 
thoughtful  and  benevolent  Englishman  in  the  far  East. 
Trevelyan  told  how  he  himself,  at  Delhi,  had  been  for 
four  years  speculating  on  the  advantages  of  thus  using 
the  English  language.  From  that  hour  he  clung  to 
the  missionary,  and  became  the  principal  link  between 
his  far-seeing  practical  principles  on  the  one  hand  and 

*  The  Life  and  Letters  of  Lord  Macaulay,  by  his  nephew,  George 
Otto  Trevelyan,  M.P.     Second  Edition,  vol.  i.,  p.  387. 


184  LIFE   OF  DR.    DUFF.  1834. 

the  coming  action  of  Government  in  the  same  direc- 
tion. It  fell  to  Macaulay  to  advise  and  to  the  Gover- 
nor-General to  act  under  the  following  circumstances. 
When  the  British  succeeded  to  the  Muhammadan 
civil  government  of  Bengal  and  Hindostan,  on  the 
Emperor  Shah  Alum's  grants  to  Olive  at  Benares  in 
1765,  Warren  Hastings  made  the  first  and  most  en- 
lightened attempt  to  popularise  the  sacred  books  of 
Islam  and  Brahmanism  by  Halhed's  translations.  It 
was  in  vain.  When  Lord  Cornwallis  was  forced  to  put 
the  judicial  as  well  as  revenue  courts  under  British 
officers,  he  still  made  a  barbarous  Persian,  as  technical 
as  the  language  of  the  Scottish  courts,  the  only 
lingual  medium  between  the  people  and  their  new 
rulers.  The  earliest  colleges,  as  we  have  seen,  Muham- 
madan at  Calcutta  and  Sanscrit  at  Benares,  were  created 
to  prepare  the  few  natives  required  as  intermediaries 
between  the  Company's  civilians  and  their  subjects. 
Thus  an  orientalism  unworthy  of  the  name  of  scholar- 
ship sprang  up,  grew  by  tradition  in  spite  of  English 
scholars  like  Sir  William  Jones,  and  widened  the 
gulf  between  the  foreign  ruler  and  the  ignorant, 
oppressed  and  suspicious  ruled.  Lord  Wellesley  was 
the  first  who  had  the  genius  to  seek  to  correct  the  evil. 
In  spite  of  the  parsimonious  Court  of  Directors,  he 
established  the  College  of  Fort  William.  He  put  Carey 
and  Buchanan  practically  at  its  head,  to  teach  the 
vernacular  as  well  as  classical  languages  of  the  East, 
and  to  train  the  young  *'  writers  "  with  a  view,  as  Duff 
described  it,  to  *'  the  formation  of  sound  moral  and 
religious  habits,  as  much  as  for  the  cultivation  of  all 
branches  of  professional  or  useful  knowledge."  That 
college,  like  "  the  glorious  little  man "  its  founder, 
sent  forth  a  body  of  scholars  and  administrators  to 
whom  we  owe  the  conquest  and  good  government  of 
India  up  to  the  next  generation  of  then*  pupils,  headed 


jEt  28.         THE    GROWTH   OF   A  VICIOUS    ORIENTALISM.        1 85 

by  the  Lawrences  and  Durand,  Thomason  and  the 
Muirs.  Some,  like  Lord  Metcalfe,  early  corrected  the 
orientalizing  tendency  of  their  studies  by  executive 
work  on  the  widest  scale.  Others,  like  Sir  W.  Mac- 
naghten,  intensified  its  evils  by  the  narrowing  work  of 
a  mere  secretary  to  Government.  Lord  Minto's  ad- 
ministration, more  brilliant  in  some  respects  than  has 
yet  been  allowed,  identified  the  growing  orientalism, 
not  with  the  toler  ^.tion  in  which  it  was  born,  but  with 
antichristian  anti-popular  timidity.  Lord  Hastings, 
though  personally  friendly  to  the  religious  instruction 
of  the  natives,  found  the  orientt^l  mania  in  this  form 
too  strong  for  him  to  let  it  grow.  Sydney  Smith's 
brother,  who  had  made  a  fortune  as  Advocate-General 
in  Calcutta,  proposed  the  educational  clause  in  the 
charter  of  1813,  doubtless  in  the  interest  of  the 
Brahmanizing  orientalists,  who  had  almost  unchecked 
influence  with  the  Governor- General  when  it  came  to 
be  applied.  But  whatever  tlio  intention.  Parliament, 
led  by  the  Grants  and  Wilberforce  and  deluged  with 
petitions  from  the  whole  country,  had  so  worded  the 
clause  as  to  secure  the  education  of  the  whole 
people  of  India  in  positive  truth  of  every  kind,  the 
revealed  truth  of  Christianity  being  no  doubt  as  much 
in  their  mind  as  the  superstitions  of  Brahmanism  and 
the  Koran  were  in  that  of  the  minority.  Like  much 
else  in  human  compromises,  confessions  and  con- 
tracts, the  language  fortunately  allowed  of  honest 
development  according  to  the  growing  needs  of  the 
country  and  the  time. 

Still  the  orientalists,  being  in  power  on  the  spot, 
had  the  unchecked  administration  of  the  money  al- 
lowed for  public  instruction.  In  spite  of  Rammohun 
Roy,  notwithstanding  the  expressed  desire  of  the 
natives  themselves  for  English,  although  the  vernacu- 
lars were  barren  and  the  classical  books  printed  and 


1 86  LIFE   OP   DE.    DUFF.  1834. 

taught  were  not  touched  by  one  native  who  was  not 
highly  paid  for  submitting  to  learn  them,  the  British 
Government  persisted  in  its  folly.  When  the  ex- 
pediency of  spending  a  little  of  the  grant  ordered  by 
Parliament  on  the  Hindoo  College  established  by  tlio 
natives  themselves  was  forced  on  the  authorities,  tlio 
agent  whom  they  selected  to  represent  them  was  the 
most  intense  and  least  Christian  of  all  the  oriental 
party — the  assistant- surgeon,  Horace  Hayman  Wilson. 
Even  in  1833,  when  the  Company  had  to  render  the 
next  account  of  its  stewardship,  the  Government 
Committee  of  Public  Instruction  was  equally  divided 
between  Oriento-maniacs  and  Anglo-maniacs,  as  they 
called  each  other.  What  the  teaching  was  in  the 
partially  English  Hindoo  College  we  have  seen.  It 
remained  in  the  Benares  Sanscrit  College  exactly  what 
Bishop  Heber  described  it  to  have  been  during  his  tour 
in  Upper  India.  Under  a  grant  ordered  by  Parliament 
on  the  pressure  of  the  Christian  public,  and  ad- 
ministered by  a  Christian  Government,  a  professor 
lecturing  on  a  terrestrial  globe  identified  Mount  Meroo 
with  the  North  Pole,  declared  that  the  tortoise  of 
the  Hindoo  cosmogony  supported  the  earth  from  under 
the  South  Pole,  pointed  to  Padalon  in  the  centre  of 
the  globe,  and  demonstrated  how  the  sun  went  round 
the  earth  every  day  and  visited  the  signs  of  the  Zodiac! 
Well  might  the  teaching  of  such  "  rubbish  "  in  a  state 
college  excite  the  wonder  of  the  Bishop.  But  that  was 
harmless  compared  with  what  was  taught  elsewhere, 
and  even  with  the  obscenely  idolatrous  teaching  which 
Imgered  in  Government  school-books  till  Lord  North- 
brook  purged  them  three  years  ago,  if  indeed  they  be 
yet  purged. 

When  Trevelyan  came  to  the  support  of  Duff,  and 
adopted  his  plans  as  well  as  his  principles  as  the  only 
policy  for  Government,  the  Brahmanizing  five  in  the 


/Et.  28.  THE    TEACniNG   OF   THE    ORIENTALISTS.  1 87 

Government  committee  were  these  :  The  Honble.  H. 
Shakespear  was  a  colleague  of  the  Governor-General, 
and  only  as  such  was  dangerous.  Mr.  H.  Thoby  Prin- 
sep  and  Mr.  James  Prinsep  were  brothers.  The  latter, 
an  uncovenanted  officer  of  the  Mint,  was  the  greatly 
lamented  scholar  who  fell  an  early  victim  to  his  too 
eager  researches  into  the  inscriptions  on  coins  and 
rocks  which  he  deciphered.  The  former  was  one  of  the 
under-secretaries  to  Government  at  that  time,  was  a 
greater  scholar  in  Arabic  and  Persian  than  his  brother, 
was  afterwards  director,  member  of  Parliament,  and 
member  of  the  Secretary  of  State's  council,  and  died 
at  eighty-six,  the  day  before  Duff.  William  Hay  Mac- 
naghten  was  a  Charterhouse  boy,  who  from  the  day  he 
landed  in  India,  first  as  a  cadet  and  then  as  a  civilian, 
mastered  the  several  languages  of  south  and  north, 
proved  the  most  extraordinary  scholar  in  the  classical 
tongues  ever  turned  out  by  Fort  William  College,  and 
was  trusted  by  Lord  William  Bentinck  beyond  any 
other  secretary.  His  evil  policy  and  sad  fate  in  Cabul 
make  his  career  most  tragic.  These,  with  the  zealous 
secretary  of  the  committee,  Mr.  T.  C.  C.  Sutherland, 
made  the  orientalists  very  formidable  antagonists. 

The  Anglicists  were  no  less  strong,  however.  Fore- 
most among  them  was  the  greatest  land-revenue  au- 
thority, Robert  Mertins  Bird,  who  corrected  and  com- 
pleted the  work  of  Holt  Mackenzie,  author  of  the  first 
official  minute  on  education,  and  at  whose  feet  Lord 
Lawrence  sat  as  a  revering  pupil.  Mr.  J.  B.  Colvin 
was  he  who  died  in  Agra  Fort  during  the  mutiny, 
Lieutenant-Governor.  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan  atoned 
for  the  probably  routine  efficiency  of  Messrs.  Saunders 
and  Bushby,  who  always  voted  straight.  We  must  in 
justice  to  these  two  main  parties  add  a  third,  whom  we 
may  describe  as  Vernacularists.  Allying  himself  with 
the  Serampore  men  then  left,  with  Dr.  Marsh  man  and 


l88  LIFE    OF    DE.    DUFF.  1834. 

hk  son  in  the  Friend  of  India,  Mr.  Brian  H.  Hodgson, 
long  the  first  authority  on  Tibetan  Buddhism,  advo- 
cated the  foundation  of  a  normal  vernacular  institution 
to  manufacture  good  teachers,  reliable  translators  and 
pure  books.     English,  ho  urged,  would  be  as  bad  as 
Persian,  Arabic  and  Sanscrit,  which  had  "  proved  the 
curse  "  of  India,  "  not  so  much  by  reason  of  the  false 
doctrines  they  have  inculcated   as  by  reason  of   the 
administrative  mystery  they  have  created  and  upheld." 
All  that  was  good,  or  possible  at  the  time,  in  Mr. 
Hodgson's  then  really  remarkable  proposal  Mr.  Duff 
had  already  advocated  or  actually  carried  into  effect. 
His  school  and  college  long  proved  to  be  the  first  of 
normal  training  institutions  in  India,  which,  indeed, 
has  had  no  others   worthy  of  the   name  save   those 
established   by   the    Christian   Vernacular   Education 
Society  since  the  mutiny.     The  vernacular  department 
of  his  school,  fitting  into  the  English  and  ultimately 
the  Sanscrit  classes,  secured  all  that  the  great  orien- 
talist of  Nipal  wanted.    But  Hodgson,  in  common  with 
his  less  enlightened  fellows  on  the  committee,  could  not 
see  that  while  the  natives  themselves  desired  English, 
while  it  was  administratively  necessary  as  well  as  politi- 
cally desirable  to  give  them  facilities  for  mastering  the 
English  literature  as  well  as  language,  no  body  of  truth, 
scientific,  historical  or  ethical, not  to  say  Christian,  could 
be  conveyed  to  the  natives  through  their  then  barren 
vernaculars  or  sealed  classical  tongues.     The  Govern- 
ment, like  the  missionaries,  must  begin  at  both  ends  :  at 
the  vernacular  that  the  people  might  at  least  read  and 
write  their  own  language  intelligently,  and  at  the  higher 
or  English  end  that  thence  their  own  teachers  might 
convey  the  material  and  even  the  terms  of  truth  to 
them  through  the  vernacular ;  and  in  time  to  the  learned 
through  the  Sanscrit,  Arabic  and  Persian.     Writing  of 
this  period  Duff  declared : — "  I  saw  clearly  and  ex- 


^t.  28.       ME.  B.  HODGSON  AND  THE  VERNACULARISTS.  1 89 

pressed  myself  strongly  to  the  effect  that  ultimately, 
in  a  generation  or  two,  the  Bengalee,  by  improvement, 
might  become  the  fitting  medium  of  European  know- 
ledge. But  at  that  time  it  was  but  a  poor  language, 
like  English  before  Chaucer,  and  had  in  it,  neither 
by  translation  nor  original  composition,  no  works  em- 
bodying any  subjects  of  study  beyond  the  merest 
elements.  As  a  native  of  the  Highlands  I  vividly 
realized  the  fact  that  the  Gaelic  language,  though  power- 
ful for  lyric  and  other  poetry  and  also  for  popular 
address,  contained  no  works  that  could  possibly  meet 
the  objects  of  a  higher  and  comprehensive  education. 
Hence  those  who  sought  that  found  it  in  English  col- 
leges, and  returned  as  teachers  and  preachers  to  dis- 
tribute the  treasures  of  knowledge  acquired  through 
English  among  the  Gaelic  people." 

Just  when,  in  1834,  Duff's  success,  Trevelyan's 
earnestness,  and  the  increasing  urgency  of  the  de- 
spatches from  the  Court  of  Directors  drafted  by  his 
friend  Mr.  James  Mill*  had  produced  a  dead-lock  in  the 
Committee  of  Public  Instruction,  Macaulay  was  ap- 
pointed its  president.  But  he  declined  to  act  until  the 
Government,  of  which  he  was  a  member,  should  have 
decided  the  question  of  policy  in  its  executive  capacity. 
And  to  him,  as  law  member,  the  preliminary  duty  was 
assigned  of  declaring  whether  the  Governor-General  in 
Council  could  legally  apply  to  English  education  the 
grant  ordered  by  the  Parliament  of  1813,  and  hitherto 
reserved  for  a  so-called  orientalism.  On  the  2nd  Feb- 
ruary, 1835,  he  submitted  to  Lord  William  Bentinck 

•  In  1836  Macaalay  wrote  to  his  father  : — "  I  have  been  a  sin- 
cere mourner  for  Mill.  He  and  I  were  on  the  best  terms,  and  liis 
services  at  the  India  House  were  never  so  much  needed  as  at  this 
time.  I  had  a  most  kind  letter  from  him  a  few  weeks  before  I 
heard  of  his  death.  He  has  a  son  just  come  out,  to  whom  I  have 
shown  such  little  attentions  as  are  in  my  power." 


IQO  LIFE    OP  DR.    DUFF.  1835. 

that  minute  which,  while  as  striking  a  specimen  of  his 
written  stylo  as  even  the  passage  on  Burke  in  his 
"  Yfarren  Hastings  "  pronounced  by  his  biographer 
"  unsurpassed,"  proved  to  be  the  first  charter  of  in- 
tellectnal  libert}'-  for  the  people  of  India,  the  educa- 
tional despatch  of  1854  based  on  Duff's  evidence  before 
a  Parliamentary  committee  being  the  second. 

In  that  minute  Micaulay  began  by  showing  that  the 
lakh  of  rup'^es  set  apart  by  order  of  Parliament  was  not 
only  for  "  reviving  literature  in  India,"   but  also  for 
"  the  iutrod action  and  promotion  of  a  knowledge  of  the 
sciences  among  the  inhabitants  of  the  British  terri- 
tories."    These  words, he  said,  are  "alone  sufficient  to 
authorize  all  the  changes  for  which  I  contend."     But 
so  terribly  was  he  in  earnest  that  he  proposed,  if  his 
colleagues  in  council  differed  from   him,  to  do  what 
would  now  be  impossible, — to  pass  a  short  Act  rescind- 
ing that  former  clause  of  the  charter  of  1813  on  which 
the  orientalists  based  their  opposition.     He  was  him- 
self indeed  the  author  of  the  charter  of  1833  more 
than  any  other  man,  even  Lord  Glenelg,  and  he  was 
the  most  constitutional  of  Whigs.     But,  nevertheless, 
to  propose  that   a  local  legislature,  and  such  a  legis- 
lature as  that  of  India  was  till  Lord  Dalhousie's  time, 
should  quietly  abolish  an  Act  of  Parliament,  was  daring 
even  then.      The   proposal   was  unnecessary,   for  his 
opinion  as  the  responsible  legal  adviser  of  the  Governor- 
General  was  sufiScient.     In  twelve  pages  like  this  he 
then  proceeded  to  prove  that,  being  "  free  to  employ 
our  funds  as  we  choose,  we  ought  to  employ  them  in 
teaching  what  is  best  worth  knowing ;  that  English  is 
better  worth  knowing  than  Sanscrit  or  Arabic ;  that 
the  natives  are    desirous   to  be  taught  English   and 
are  not  desirous    to  be  taught  Sanscrit    or  Arabic ; 
that  neither  as  the  languages  of  law  nor  as  the  lan- 
guages of  religion  have  the  Sanscrit  and  Arabic  any 


JEt.  2g.  MACAULAY  S    FAMOUS    MINUTE.  IQI 

])cculiar  claim  to  our  encouragement;  that  it  is  possi- 
i)le  to  make  natives  of  this  country  thoroughly  good 
English  scliolars,  and  that  to  this  end  our  efforts  ought 
to  bo  directed."  Mr.  Thoby  Prinsep  replied  after  the 
Anoflo-Indian  fashion,  which  conducts  all  deliberate  dis- 
ciission  by  then  written  i\r\d  now  printed  minutes,  often 
of  value  second  only  te  Macaulay's,  and  too  seldom 
ordered  by  Parliament  to  be  published.  Able  as  that 
councillor  was,  even  in  his  blindness  and  to  the  last 
hour  of  liis  duties  in  the  India  Office,  his  vain  repre- 
sentations called  forth  only  this  rejoinder,  scratched 
in  pencil,  from  the  law  member  :  "  I  remain  not  only 
unshaken  but  confirmed  in  all  my  opinions  on  the 
general  question.  I  may  have  committed  a  slight  mis- 
take or  two  as  to  details,  and  I  may  have  occasionally 
used  an  epithet  which  might  with  advantage  be  soft- 
ened down.  But  I  do  not  retract  the  substance  of  a 
single  proposition  I  have  advanced." 

Never  did  what  his  enemies  called  his  "conceit," 
and  hostile  critics  afterwards  used  to  denounce  as  his 
"  obstinacy,"  stand  the  world  in  better  stead.  He 
fought  for  the  enlightenment  of  the  millions  of  our 
Indian  Empire  as  it  then  was,  and  of  millions  yet 
unborn.  While  in  the  same  breath  he  officially  and 
personally  advocated  religT^us  neutrality,  it  was  a 
true  neutrality,  intended  to  prevent  the  hostility  of 
Hindooizing  foreigners  to  Christian  liberty  and  prin- 
ciples, and  he  stood  forth  the  greatest  ally  the  Indian 
missionary  has  ever  had.  It  was  not  only  English 
that  Macaulay  persuaded  the  Government  to  teach, 
it  was  the  recognition  of  the  equality  of  children 
of  all  castes  in  the  public  schools,  from  which  the 
Brahmanizing  orientalists  had  weakly  excluded  all  but 
the  Brahmans.  When  he  fairly  joined  the  committee 
he  penned  such  ink-blotted  sentences  as  these  in  the 
minute-book  which  circulated  from  member  to  mem- 


192  LIFE    OP   DR.    DUFP.  1834. 

ber :  "No  such  distinction  ouglit  to  be  tolerated  in  any 
school  supported  by  us."  "  Tlio  general  rule  clearly 
ought  to  be  that  all  classes  shou'd  be  treated  alike, 
and  sliould  be  suiTered  to  intermingle  freely."  It  was 
only  Duff  and  the  Christian  missionaries  who  had  up 
to  this  time  disregarded  caste  and  idolatrous  festi- 
vals alike  in  their  schools,  and  who  had  begun  rot 
only  to  ask  but  to  receive  fees  for  the  secular  instruc- 
tion, such  as  the  respectable  poor  could  pay  and  as 
would  make  them  value  aright  the  instruction  they 
received.  But  it  was  much  that  the  Government 
should  at  that  time  follow  the  same  just  and  tolerant 
course. 

Nor  was  it  in  this  only  that  Macaulay,  as  an 
educationist,  followed  Duff,  through  Trevelyan  as  the 
intermediary.  In  public  instruction,  as  in  everything 
else,  principles  are  little  without  the  men  to  give  them 
effect.  Even  after  tempting  the  missionary's  assist- 
ants, like  Mr.  Clift,  to  leave  him,  Government  could 
not  get  teachers  worth  the  name.  In  the  days  before 
normal  schools  Macaulay  wrote  in  the  old  minute 
book,  "  Teacliing  is  an  art  to  be  learned  by  practice. 
I  am  satisfied  that  it  will  soon  be  found  necessary  to 
import  from  England,  or  rather  from  Scotland,  a  re- 
gular supply  of  masters  for  the  Government  schools." 
And  from  the  first,  again  following  Duff  more  or  less 
consciously,  Macaulay  looked  on  English  as  the  indis- 
pensable preliminary  to  the  true  education  of  the 
people  in  their  own  vernaculars.  He  thus  supported 
a  proposal  to  teach  Hindee  at  Ajmer  :  —  "  An  order 
to  give  instruction  in  the  English  language  is,  by 
necessary  implication,  an  order  to  give  instruction, 
where  that  instruction  is  required,  in  the  vernacu* 
lar  language.  For  what  is  meant  by  teaching  a 
boy  a  foreign  language?  Surely  this,  the  teaching 
him  what  words  in  the  foreign  language  correspond  to 


M.  28.  MACAULAY   ON   TEACHINO   ENGLISH.  1 93 

certain  words  in  his  own  vernacular  language,  the 
enabling  him  to  translate  from  the  foreign  language 
into  his  own  vernacular  language,  and  vice  versa.  Wo 
learn  one  language,  our  mother  tongue,  by  noticing 
the  correspondence  between  words  and  things.  But 
all  the  languages  which  we  afterwards  study  wo  learn 
by  noticing  the  correspondence  between  the  words  in 
those  languages  and  the  words  in  our  own  mother 
tongue.  The  teaching  the  boys  at  Ajmer,  therefore, 
to  read  and  write  Ilindee  seems  to  me  to  bo  bond  fide 
a  part  of  an  English  education.  To  teach  them  Per- 
sian would  bo  to  set  up  a  rival,  and,  as  I  apprehend,  a 
very  unworthy  rival  to  the  English  language." 

So,  just  seven  years  before.  Duff  had  not  only 
written  but  acted  in  the  case  of  Bengalee,  and  for  tlio 
first  time  in  the  East.  Before  he  left  India  Macaulay 
was  able,  sympathetically  with  the  objects  of  the  mis- 
sionaries, to  write  to  his  father  in  language  that  reads 
like  an  extract  from  Duff's  earlier  official  reports  to 
Dr.  Inglis  : — "  Our  English  schools  are  flourishing 
wonderfully.  We  find  it  difficult,  indeed  in  some 
places  impossible,  to  provide  instruction  for  all  who 
want  it.  At  the  single  town  of  Hooghly  fourteen 
hundred  boys  are  learning  English.  The  effect  of 
this  education  on  the  Hindoos  is  prodigious.  No 
Hindoo  who  has  received  an  English  education  ever 
remains  sincerely  attached  to  his  religion.  Some 
continue  to  confess  it  as  matter  of  policy ;  but  many 
profess  themselves  pure  deists,  and  some  embrace 
Cliristianity.  It  is  my  firm  belief  that  if  our  plans 
of  education  are  followed  up  there  will  not  be  a  single 
idolater  among  the  respectable  classes  in  Bengal  thirty 
years  hence." 

Having,  as  a  colleague  of  Macaulay's,  endorsed  his 
opinions  in  a  minute,  as  Governor-General  in  Council 
Lord  William  Bentinck  thus  issued  the  decree  of  the 

o 


194  I'IFE   OP   DE.    DVFP,  1835. 

7th  ^farcli,  1835,  which  fitly  closed  tho  long  list  of 
services  to  the  people  of  India  and  his  own  country 
such  as  tho  former  have  immortalized  by  the  statue 
with  its  inscription  fronting  tho  Town-hall  of  Calcutta, 
anu  as  tho  latter  has  expressed  through  the  eulogium 
penned  by  IMacaulay  : — 

*'lst.  His  Lordship  in  Council  is  of  opinion  that;  tho  groat 
object  of  the  British  Government  ought  to  bo  tho  promotion  of 
Kuropoan  liteniiuro  and  science  among  tho  natives  of  India, 
and  that  all  tho  funds  appropriated  for  tho  purposes  of  educa- 
tion would  be  best  em})loyed  on  English  education  done. 

"  2nd.  But  it  is  not  the  intention  of  his  Lordship  in  Council 
to  abolish  any  college  or  school  of  native  learning,  while  tho 
native  population  shall  appear  to  bo  inclined  to  avail  themselves 
{  f  tho  advantages  which  it  affords  ;  and  his  Lordship  in  Council 
directs  that  all  the  existing  professors  and  students  at  all  tho 
institutions  under  tho  superintendence  of  the  committee  shall 
continue  to  receive  their  stipends.  But  his  Lordship  in  Coun- 
cil decidedly  objects  to  the  practice  which  has  hitherto  prevailed 
of  supporting  tho  students  during  the  period  of  their  education, 
lie  conceives  that  tho  only  effects  of  such  a  system  can  be  to 
give  artificial  encouragement  to  branches  of  learning  which,  in 
the  natural  course  of  things,  would  be  superseded  by  more 
useful  studies  j  and  he  directs  that  no  stipend  shall  be  given  to 
any  student  that  may  hereafter  enter  at  any  of  these  institu- 
tions, and  that  when  any  pi'ofessor  of  oriental  learning  shall 
vacate  his  situation  tho  committee  shall  report  to  the  Govern- 
ment the  number  and  state  of  the  clas?  in  order  that  tho 
Government  may  be  able  to  decide  upon  the  expediency  of 
appointing  a  successor. 

"3rd.  It  has  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  Governor- 
General  in  Council,  that  a  large  sum  has  been  expended  by 
the  committee  on  the  printing  of  oriental  works ;  his  Lordship 
in  Council  directs  that  no  portion  of  the  funds  shall  hereafter 
be  so  employed. 

"  4th.  His  Lordship  in  Council  directs  that  all  the  funds 
which  these  reforms  v.'ill  leave  at  the  disposal  of  the  committee 
be  henceforth  employed  in  imparting  to  the  native  population 
a  knowledge  of  English  literature  and  science  through  the 


JEt.  29.  aOVERNMKNT    DECEEE    IN    FAVOUR   OP  ENGLISH.     I95 

mocliiim  of  tho  English  language  j  and  his  Lordship  in  Council 
requests   tho   cominittoo  to  submit  to  Government,   witli  all 
expedition,  a  plan  for  the  nccomplishmcut  of  this  purpose."— 
(Signed,)  "  U.  T.  1'kinhei',  Secretary  to  G  over  time  tit." 

Rhadakant  Deb  and  Russoraoy  Dutt,  tlio  native 
lenders  of  the  orthodox  and  the  liberal  Bengalees, 
were  at  once  added  to  the  committee ;  for  even  the 
orthodox  had  never  approved  of  the  fanatical  and,  in 
relation  to  them,  false  orientalism  of  Dr.  H.  H.  Wilson 
and  liis  associates.  The  Prinseps,  one  of  whom  had 
officially  signed  the  decree,  led  the  Bengal  Asiatic 
Society  in  an  attack  upon  "  the  destructive,  unjust, 
unpopular  and  impolitic  resolution,  not  far  outdone  by 
tlie  destruction  of  the  Alexandrine  library  itself,"  and 
memorialised  the  Court  of  Directors  against  it.  What 
Sir  Charles  Trevelyan,  after  all  the  experience  of  tho 
past  half-century,  still  thinks  of  Duff  and  his  share 
in  the  triumph,  that  veteran  reformer  has  enabled  us 
thus  to  learn  : — 

"  Our  concern,"  he  writes  to  us,  "is  with  the  part 
performed  by  Dr.  Duff  at  this  crisis  of  Indian  history. 
When  he  arrived  in  India  the  first  marveUous  results 
of  the  education  given  at  the  Hindoo  College  had  begun 
to  appear.  Newly  acquired  freedom  had  led  to  a  state 
of  intellectual  exaltation,  and,  seeing  that  the  religious 
system  they  had  been  taught  to  venerate  had  no  foun- 
dation, the  young  men  jumped  to  the  conclusion  that 
all  religion  was  priestcraft.  Dr.  Duff  then  came  for- 
ward as  a  dtifender  of  the  truth  of  Christianity,  and 
in  several  public  disputations  lie  converted  some  and 
enforced  respect  upon  all.  But  he  did  a  great  deal 
more  than  this.  He  clearly  appreciated  the  new  intel- 
lectual and  moral  power  which  had  appeared  on  the 
field,  and  had  the  sagacity  to  distinguish  between  its 
present  abuse  and  the  important  use  to  which,  under 
proper  direction,   it  might  be  appl^od  in  aid  of  the 


196  LIFE   OP   EH.    DUr?.  1835. 

Cliristian  cause.  There  was  a  general  demand  for 
education,  and  lie  proposed  to  meet  it  by  giving  reli- 
gious education.  Up  to  that  time  preaching  had  been 
considered  the  orthodox  regular  mode  of  missionary 
action,  but  J)r.  "Duff  luld  that  the  receptive  plastic 
minds  of  children  might  be  moulded  from  the  first 
according  to  the  Christian  system,  to  the  exclusion  of 
all  heathen  teaching,  and  that  the  best  preaching  to 
the  rising  generation  which  soon  becomes  the  entire 
people,  is  the  '  line  upon  line,  precept  upon  precept ; 
here  a  little,  and  there  a  little,'  of  the  schoolroom. 
Reconstruction  upon  a  sound  basis  would  then  be 
linked  with  the  destruction  of  ancient  error.  What- 
ever difficulties  the  Government  might  have,  the  mis- 
sionary societies  were  free  to  offer  religious  education 
to  all  who  were  willing  to  accept  it. 

"  The  remarkable  success  of  the  school  which  Dr. 
Duff  opened  at  Calcutta  on  these  principles,  and  the 
influence  it  had  in  promoting  the  establishment  of 
similar  institutions  in  other  parts  of  India,  are  well 
known,  but  account  should  also  be  taken  of  the  direct 
access  thus  gained  to  the  future  leaders  of  the  people, 
and  of  the  new  respect  paid  to  missionaries  as  tutors 
of  young  native  chiefs  and  other  highly  considered 
persons.  These  were  great  and  pregnant  reforms, 
which  must  always  give  Dr.  Duff  a  high  place  among 
the  benefactors  of  mankind.  The  indirect  influence  of 
his  exertions  upon  the  action  of  the  Government  was 
at  least  equally  important.  The  example  of  his  suc- 
cess, and  the  stimulus  gi^'-en  by  him  to  the  popular 
demand  for  English  educt  jn,  entered  largely  into  the 
causes  which  brougnt  about  the  Resolution  of  Govern- 
ment of  the  seventh  of  March,  1835." 

Duff's  own  attitude  and  criticism  of  the  last  act  of 
Lord  William  Bentinck  will  be  found  in  that  which  is, 
historically,  the  most  important  of  his  many  pamphlets. 


^t.  29.       TREVELYAN   ON  HIS   SERVICES  TO   MANKIND.       1 97 

his  "  New  Era  of  the  English  Language  and  English 
Literature  in  India."  With  the  culture  that  had 
marked  his  whole  school  and  university  studies,  he 
recognised  the  attractions  of  a  genuine  oriental  scholar- 
ship, and  reproached  his  countrymen  for  their  indif- 
ference to  it,  for  "  perseverhig  in  a  truly  barbarous 
irrnorauce  of  one  of  the  most  remarkable  nations 
and  countries  on  the  face  of  the  globe."  Following 
that  remark  of  a  contemporary  historian,  Duff  con- 
tinued : — 

*'  If  poetry  and  romance  and  chivalry  bo  an  object  of  pursuit, 
are  there  not  ample  stores  of  poetic  eS'usion  and  romantic 
legend  that  might  not  be  disclaimed  as  unworthy  by  any  of  the 
older  nations  of  Europe  ?  and  are  the  records  of  any  state  more 
crowded  with  the  recital  of  daring  adventures  and  deeds  of 
heroism  than  the  annals  of  Rajasthan  ?  If  philology,  where 
can  we  find  the  match  of  the  Sanscrit,  perhaps  the  most 
copious  and  certainly  the  most  elaborately  refined  of  all  lan- 
guages, living  or  dead  ?  If  antiquities,  are  there  not  monu- 
mental remains  and  cavern  temples  scarcely  less  stupendous 
than  those  of  Egypt  ?  and  ancient  sculptures,  which,  if  inferior 
in  'majesty  .and  expression,*  in  richness  and  variety  of  orna- 
mental tracery,  almost  rival  those  of  Greece  ?  If  natural 
history,  where  is  the  mineral  kingdom  more  exujerautly  rich, 
the  vegetable  or  animal  more  variegated,  goi'geous,  or  gigantic  ? 
If  the  intellectual  and  moral  histor}  of  man,  are  there  not 
masses  of  subtile  speculation  and  fantastic  philosophies,  and 
infinitely  varied  and  unparalleled  developments  of  every  prin- 
ciple of  action  that  has  characterized  falleu  degraded  humanity  ? 
If  an  outlet  for  the  exercise  of  philanthropy,  what  field  on  the 
surface  of  the  globe  can  be  compared  to  Hindostan,  stretching 
from  the  Indus  to  the  Ganges,  and  from  the  Himalaya  to  Cape 
Comorin,  in  point  of  magnitude  and  accessibility  combined, 
and  peculiarity  of  claims  on  British  Christians,  the  claims  of 
not  less  than  a  hundred  and  thirty  millions  of  fellow-snbjects, 
sunk  beneath  a  load  of  the  most  debasing  superstitions,  and 
the  crudest  idolatries  that  ever  polluted  the  surface  of  the 
earth,  or  brutalized  the  nature  of  man  ?  " 


198  LIFE   OP  DR.   DUFF.  1835, 

Having  used  official  documents  to  show  the  people  of 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland  wherein  the  follies  of  the 
Calcutta  orientalists'  abuse  of  the  public  money  differed 
from  the  pursuit  of  an  enlightened  scholarship,  the 
missionary  vindicated  the  propriety  and  excellence  of 
the  decree  which  restored  the  Government  position 
of  strict  neutrality  by  allowing  English  to  take  its 
place  beside  the  classical  and  vernacular  languages  of 
the  people  of  India,  according  to  their  own  demand, 
and  with  a  view  to  purify  the  former  while  enriching 
the  latter : — 


« 


As  concerns  the  interests  nnd  glory  of  the  Government 
itself,  its  dissemination  of  its  own  language  and  literature,  far 
fi'om  being  impolitic,  seems  the  only  wise  and  magnanimous 
policy.  The  vast  influence  of  language  in  moulding  national 
feelings  and  habits,  more  especially  if  fraught  with  superior 
stores  of  knowledge,  is  too  little  attended  to  and  too  inade- 
quately understood.  In  this  respect  we  are  in  the  rear  of 
nations  some  of  which  we  are  apt  to  despise  as  semi-barbarous. 
When  the  Romans  conquered  a  province  they  forthwith  set 
themselves  to  the  task  of  '  Romanizing '  it ;  that  is,  they  strove 
to  create  a  taste  for  their  own  more  refined  language  and  liter- 
ature, and  thereby  aimed  at  turning  the  song  and  the  romance 
and  the  history — the  thought  and  the  feeling  and  fancy,  of  the 
subjugated  people,  into  Roman  channels,  which  fed  and  aug- 
mented Romish  interests.  And  has  Rome  not  succeeded  ? 
Has  she  not  saturated  every  vernacular  dialect  with  which  she 
came  in  contact  with  terms  copiously  drawn  from  her  own  ? 
Has  she  not  thus  perpetuated  for  ages  after  her  sceptre  moul- 
ders in  the  dust  the  magic  influence  of  her  character  and 
name  ?  Has  she  not  stamped  the  impress  of  her  own  genius 
on  the  literature  and  the  laws  of  almost  every  European  king- 
dom, with  a  fixedness  that  has  remained  unchanged  up  to  the 
present  hour  ? 

"  Ai^d  who  can  tell  to  what  extent  the  strength  and  perpe- 
tuity of  the  Arabic  domination  is  indebted  to  the  Caliph  Walid, 
who  issued  the  celebrated  decree  that  the  language  of  the 
Koran  should  be  '  the  universal  language  of  the  Muhamraadan 


JEt  29.       ANALOGY  OF  ROME,  THM  CALIPHS  AND  AKBAR.       1 99 

worlds  so  that,  from  tlie  Indian  Archipelago  to  Portugal,  it 
actually  became  the  language  of  religion,  of  literature,  of  gov- 
ernment and  generally  of  common  life  ?  * 

"And  who  can  estimate  the  extent  of  influence  exerted  in 
India  by  the  famous  edict  of  Akbar,  the  greatest  and  the  wisest 
far  of  the  sovereigns  of  the  House  of  Timur  ?  Of  this  edict 
an  authority  already  quoted  thus  wrote,  about  six  years  ago  : 
'  The  great  Akbar  established  the  Persian  language  as  the 
language  of  business  and  of  polite  literature  throughout  his 
extensive  dominions,  and  the  popular  tongue  naturally  became 
deeply  impregnated  with  it.  The  literature  and  the  language 
of  the  country  thus  became  identified  with  the  genius  of 
his  dynasty;  and  this  has  tended  more  than  anything  else  to 
produce  a  kind  of  intuitive  veneration  for  the  family,  which 
has  long  survived  even  the  destruction  of  their  power ;  and 
this  feeling  will  continue  to  exist  until  we  substitute  tho 
English  language  for  the  Persiarf,  which  will  dissolve  the  spell, 
and  direct  the  ideas  and  the  sympathies  of  the  natives  towards 
their  present  rulers.'  The  'until,'  which  only  six  years  ago 
pointed  so  doubtfully  to  the  future,  has,  sooner  than  could  have 
been  anticipated,  been  converted  into  an  event  of  past  history. 
And  to  Lord  W.  Bentinck  belongs  the  honour  of  this  noblo 
achievement.  He  it  was  who  first  resolved  to  supersede  the 
Persian,  in  the  political  department  of  the  public  service,  by 
the  substitution  of  the  English,  and  laid  the  foundation  for  tho 
same  in  every  department,  financial  and  judicial,  as  well  as 
political.  And.  having  thus  by  one  act  created  a  necessity, 
and  consequently  an  inci  ised  and  yearly  increasing  demand 
for  English,  he  next  consummated  the  great  design  by  super- 
adding the  enactment  under  review,  which  provides  the  re- 
quisite means  for  supplying  the  demand  that  had  been  pre- 
viously created.  And  this  united  Act  now  bids  fair  to  out- 
rival in  importance  the  edicts  of  the  Roman,  the  Arabic  and 
the  Mogul  emperors,  inasmuch  as  the  English  language  is  in- 
finitely more  fraught  with  the  seeds  of  truth  in  every  province 
of  literature,  science  and  religion  than  the  languages  of  Italy, 
Arabia  or  Persia  ever  were.  Hence  it  is  that  I  venture  to 
hazard  the  opinion,  that  Lord  W.  Bentinck's  double  act  for 
the  encouragement  and  diffusion  of  the  English  language  and 
English  literature  in  the  East  will,  long  after  contemporaneous 
party  interests  and  individual  jealousies  and  ephemeral  rival- 


200  LIFE   OP  DE.    DUFF.  1835. 

ries  have  sunk  into  oblivion,  bo  hailed  by  a  grateful  and  bene- 
fited posterity  as  tho  greatest  master-stroke  of  sound  policy 
that  has  yet  charactei'ized  the  administration  of  the  British 
Government  in  India." 

Let  the  Government,  he  urged,  use  the  Asiatic 
Society  of  Sir  William  Jones  and  James  Prinsep  as 
the  oflBcial  organ  for  dis})onsing  its  patronage  of  stand- 
ard oriental  writers  and  their  translations.  But  for 
the  true  education  of  the  learned  themselves,  as  well 
as  for  the  elevation  of  the  illiterate  millions,  the  vast 
ocean  of  oriental  literature  deserves  Firdousi's  satire 
on  Ghuzni  in  all  its  glory :  "  The  magnificent  court  of 
Ghuzni  is  a  sea,  but  a  sea  without  bottom  and  without 
sbore.  I  have  fished  in  it  long,  but  have  not  found 
any  pearl."  "Is  it  not  one  thing,"  asked  Duff",  "to  re- 
gard a  literature  as  an  inexhaustible  field  for  literary, 
scientific  and  theological  research,  and  quite  another  to 
cherish  it  as  the  sole  nursery  of  intellect,  morals  and 
reliorion  ?"  Nor  was  one  who  knew  the  relation  of  the 
English  to  his  own  Gaelic  vernacular  so  enthusiastic 
for  English  as  to  dream  that  it  could  ever  supersede 
the  mother  tongues  of  millions,  or  do  more  than  give 
them  a  new  wealth  and  power.  He  thus  concluded 
his  vindication  of  the  enactment,  and  proceeded  to 
show  where  it  fell  short  of  bis  own  ideal : — 

".Who,  then,  will  hesitate  in  affirming  that,  in  iJie  meantime, 
the  Government  has  acted  wisely  in  appointing  the  English 
language  as  the  medium  of  communicating  English  literature 
and  science  to  the  select  youth  of  India?  And  who  will  ven- 
ture to  say  that  the  wisdom  of  the  act  would  be  diminished 
if  it  guaranteed  the  continuance  of  English  as  the  medium 
until  the  living  spoken  dialects  of  India  became  ripened,  by  the 
copious  infusion  of  expressive  terms,  for  the  formation  of  a 
new  and  improved  national  literature  ?     .     . 

"What  will  be  the  ultimate  effect  of  these  yearly  augmenting 
educationary  forces  ?     Wo  say  ultimate  with  emphasis,  because 


^t.  29.  DEFECT  OF   THE   DECREE   OF    1835.  201 

we  are  no  visionaries.  We  do  not  expect  miracles.  We  do 
not  anticipate  sudden  and  instantaneous  changes.  But  we  do 
look  forward  with  confidence  to  a  great  vltimafe  revolution. 
We  do  regard  Lord  W.  Beutiuck'a  Act  as  laying  the  foundation 
of  a  train  of  causes  which  may  for  a  while  operate  so  insensibly 
as  to  pass  unnoticed  by  careless  or  casual  observers,  but  not 
the  less  surely  as  concerns  the  great  and  momentous  issue. 
Like  the  laws  which  silently,  but  with  resistless  power,  regu- 
late the  movements  of  the  material  universe,  these  education- 
ary  operations,  which  are  of  the  nature  and  force  of  moral 
laws,  will  proceed  onwards  till  they  terminate  in  effecting  a 
universal  change  in  the  national  mind  of  India.  The  sluices 
of  a  superior  and  quickening  knowledge  have  already  been 
thrown  open ;  and  who  shall  dare  to  shut  them  up  ?  The 
streams  of  enlivening  information  have  begun  to  flow  in  upon 
the  dry  and  parched  land,  and  who  will  venture  to  arrest  their 
progress  ?     As  well  might  we  ask  with  the  poet : — 


«  ( 


Shall  burning  Etna,  if  a  sage  requires, 
Forget  her  thunders  and  recall  her  fires  ? 
When  the  loose  mountain  trembles  from  on  high, 
Shall  gravitation  cease,  while  you  go  by  ?  ' 

"  But  highly  as  we  approve  of  Lord  W.  Bentinck's  enactment 
so  fur  as  it  goes,  we  must,  ere  we  conclude,  in  justice  to  our 
own  views  and  to  the  highest  and  noblest  cause  on  earth,  take 
the  liberty  of  strongly  expressing  our  own  honest  conviction 
that  it  does  not  go  far  enough.  Truth  is  better  than  error  in 
any  department  of  knowledge,  the  humblest  as  well  as  the 
most  exalted.  Hence  it  is  that  we  admire  the  moral  intrepid- 
ity of  the  man  who  decreed  that,  in  the  Government  institu- 
tions of  India,  true  literature  and  true  science  should  hence- 
forth be  substituted  in  place  of  false  literature,  false  science 
iiud  false  religion.  But  while  we  rejoice  that  true  literature 
and  science  is  to  be  substituted  in  place  of  what  is  demon- 
strably false,  we  cannot  but  lament  that  no  provision  whatever 
has  been  made  for  substituting  the  only  true  religion — Chris- 
tianity— in  place  of  the  false  religion  which  our  literature  and 
science  will  inevitably  demolish.     .     . 

"  Our  maxim  has  been,  is  now,  and  ever  will  be  this : — 
Wherever,  whenever,  and  by  whomsoever  Chrlstianitij  is  sacri- 
ficed on  the  altar  of  worldly  expediency,  there  and  then  must  the 


202  LlPifl   OP  DR.    D0FP.  1835. 

supreme  good  of  man  lie  bleeding  at  its  base.  But  because  a 
Christian  govorumont  has  chosen  to  neglect  its  duty  towards 
the  religion  which  it  is  sacredly  bound  to  uphold,  is  that  any 
reason  why  the  Churches  of  Britain  should  neglect  their  duty 
too  ?  Let  us  be  aroused,  then,  from  our  lethargy,  and  strive 
to  accomplish  our  part.  If  wo  are  wise  in  time,  we  may  con- 
vert the  act  of  the  Indian  Government  into  an  ally  and  a 
friend.  The  extensive  erection  of  a  machinery  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  ancient  superstition  we  may  regard  as  opening  up  new 
facilities,  in  the  good  providence  of  God,  for  the  spread 
of  the  everlasting  gospel,  as  serving  the  part  of  a  humble 
pioneer  in  clearing  away  a  huge  mass  of  rubbish  that  would 
otherwise  have  tended  to  impede  the  free  dissemination  of 
divine  truth.  Wherever  a  Government  seminary  is  founded, 
whicli  shall  have  the  effect  of  battering  down  idolatry  and 
superstition,  there  let  us  be  prepared  to  plant  a  Christian  in- 
stitution that  shall,  through  the  blessing  of  Heaven,  be  the 
instrument  of  roaring  the  beauteous  superstructure  of  Chris- 
tianity on  the  ruins  of  both. 

"  Already  has  the  Church  of  Scotland  nobly  entered  upon 
the  great  field ;  but  let  her  remember  that  she  has  only  crossed 
the  border.  Already  has  she  taken  up  a  bold  and  command- 
ing position  in  front  of  the  enemy  ;  but  let  her  not  forget  that 
the  warfare  is  only  begun.  Let  her  arise,  and  in  the  name 
of  the  Lord  march  forward  to  take  possession  of  the  land. 
Already  has  she  given  evidence  of  the  possibility,  and  an 
example  of  the  mode  of  turning  the  Government  schemes  of 
education  to  profitable  account.  Where  the  Government  had 
established  its  first  English  college  there  did  she  station  her 
first  missionaries  and  plant  her  first  Christian  institution. 
And  some  of  the  most  talented  of  the  young  men  reared  in 
the  Government  college  became,  through  the  grace  of  the  Divine 
Spirit,  her  first  converts,  the  first-fruits  of  her  missionary 
labours  in  Hindostan. 

"We  have  often  wondered  at  the  boldness  of  the  conception 
of  a  celebrated  statesman,  who,  when  taunted  on  the  occasion 
of  the  last  invasion  of  Spain  by  France,  as  to  the  diminution  of 
British  influence  and  the  declension  of  British  interests  in  the 
councils  of  Europe,  which  that  event  seemed  to  indicate,  rose  up 
in  the  British  senate,  and  in  substance  made  the  magnificent  re- 
ply :  '  While  others  were  torturing  their  minds  on  account  of  the 


M.  29.   canning's  peroration  ArrLiRD  TO  MISSIONS.    203 

supposed  (iisturbanco  of  tlio  equilibrium  of  power  among  tlio 
European  states,  I  looked  at  the  possessions  of  Spain  on  tlio 
other  side  of  the  Atlantic  :  I  looked  at  the  Indies,  and  I  called 
in  the  new  world  to  redress  the  balance  of  the  old/  What  is 
there  to  prevent  the  Church  of  Scotland*  from  attempting  to 
emulate,  in  a  much  higher  and  holier  sense,  the  magnanimous 
spirit  of  this  reply  ?  If  she  awake  and  arise,  and  put  forth 
all  her  latent  energies  in  behalf  of  the  perishing  heathen,  may 
she  not,  in  reference  to  the  glowing  prospects  of  Christianity 
in  the  East,  be  yet  privileged  to  show  that,  at  a  time  when 
many  upbraided  her  with  the  diminution  of  influence  at  home, 
and  others  were  racking  their  ingenuity  in  adjusting  the  dis- 
turbed equilibrium  of  her  power,  she  looked  at  the  dominions 
of  idolatry  across  the  great  ocean ;  she  looked  at  the  Indies 
and,  through  the  blessing  of  God,  called  in  a  new  Church  to 
redress  the  balance  of  the  old  ?  " 

With  the  sensitive  modesty  which  ever  marked  him, 
the  eloquent  adapter  of  Canning's  saying  made  no  allu- 
sion to  his  own  part  in  this  result,  of  which  Trevelyan 
writes  that  it  "  entered  largely  "  into  the  official  side 
of  the  revival,  and  how  much  more  largely  into  the 
spiritual  I  In  the  next  year's  report  which  he  drafted, 
Trevelyan,  remembering  John  Knox  though  writing  of 
purely  secular  schools,  declared  it  to  be  the  Govern- 
ment committee's  aim  to  establish  a  vernacular  school 
iu  every  village  of  India,  and  to  endow  a  college  for 
Western  learning  ultimately  in  every  zillah  or  county 
town.  In  that  one  year  the  Grovernment  English  schools 
were  doubled  in  number,  in  Bengal  and  Northern  India 
alone  rising  to  twenty-seven.     Accepting  that  so  far, 

*  The  reason  why  the  Church  of  Scotland  is  here  singled  out  for 
special  notice  is,  that  the  whole  of  the  preceding  article  happened 
to  be  originally  inserted  in  the  Church  of  Scotland  Magazine.  Tha 
author,  however,  equally  rejoices  in  all  the  real  success  that  has 
attended  the  missionary  labours  of  other  Churches  and  societies, 
and  unites  with  all  that  sincerely  love  the  Lord  Jesus  in  earnest 
prayer  and  supplication  for  their  increasing  prosperity. — A.  D. 


204  LIFE   OP   DTI.    DUFF.  1835. 

tlio  Dcw  demand  of  its  first  missionary  was,  that  tlio 
Scottish  and  other  Churches  should  plant  an  insti- 
tution beside  such  secular  schools,  to  supply  the 
people  with  the  lacking  elements  of  positive  moral  and 
spiritual  truth.  That,  too,  he  of  all  men  brought 
about,  alike  by  the  stimulus  he  gave  to  the  other 
Churches  to  follow  his  example,  and  by  the  tolerant, 
catholic  grant-in-aid  system,  which  he  did  not  succeed 
in  securing  till  Parliament  again  interfered  in  1853. 

The  conflict  which  resulted  in  the  decree  of  1835, 
and  the  discussion  to  which  that  ordinance  in  its  turn 
gave  rise,  left  a  curious  trace  on  the  writings  of  Mr. 
Gladstone  and  Macaulay  three  years  after.  Mr.  Duff's 
complaint  that  the  Government  of  India  had  made  no 
provision  for  putting  Christianity  in  the  place  of  the 
false  faiths  which  a  true  science  and  literature  were 
destroying,  rests  on  precisely  the  same  principle  to 
advocate  which  Mr.  Gladstone,  in  1838,  published  his 
first  book  on  "  The  State  in  its  Relations  with  the 
Church."  When,  on  his  return  from  India,  Macaulay 
wrote  his  well-known  essay  on  that  most  earnest 
volume,  he  met  the  proposition  that  the  propagation 
of  religious  truth  is  one  of  the  principal  ends  of 
Government,  as  Government,  by  considerations  drawn 
from  his  Indian  experience.  From  the  other  extreme 
of  political  expediency  he  assumed  that  the  Govern- 
ment of  India,  while  it  "  ought  indeed  to  desire  to 
propagate  Christianity,"  should  not  attempt  such 
substitution  of  the  true  for  the  false,  because  it 
would  inevitably  destroy  our  empire. 

Thus  was  begun,  first  practically  and  then  legis- 
latively, that  revival  of  letters  in  India,  of  which, 
referring  to  the  Renaissance  of  the  fifteenth  and  six- 
teenth centuries,  Macaulay  had  written  in  his  famous 
minute :  "  AVhat  the  Greek  and  Latin  were  to  the 
contemporaries  of  ^lore  and  Ascham,  our  tongue  is  to 


JEt  29.         TUB  REVIVAL  OP  LETTERS.  205 

th'e  people  of  India."  Similarly  Duff  Lad  reasoned 
years  before  that  was  written :  What  the  Christian 
Reformation  did  for  Europe  through  the  Greek  tongue, 
the  Roman  law  and  the  Bible  in  the  vernaculars,  it 
will  similarly  do  for  India  and  further  Asia  through 
the  English  language  and  the  British  administration. 
It  is  diflBcult  to  say  whether  he  showed  more  genius  in 
instinctively  seizing  the  position  in  1830,  in  working 
out  the  parallel  down  to  1835,  or  in  influencing  the 
Indian  Government  and  the  British  public  by  his 
heaven-born  enthusiasm  and  fiery  eloquence. 


CHAPTER  Yin. 

1833-1835. 

THE  RENAISSANCE  IN  INDIA.— SCIENCE  AND 

LETTERS. 

The  Duff-Ben  find:  Period. — The  Aryan  Witness  to  Christian  Doc- 
trine.— Medical  Science  and  Practice  in  Vedic  times. — Charaka 
and  Susruta. —  First  Attempt  of  an  Indian  Governnicnt  at  Medical 
TeachinjT.  in  1822. — Dnff  Protests  apfainst  the  Unscientific  Folly 
of  the  Orientalists. — Lord  William  Bentinck's  Goraniittee, — Sir 
C.  Trevelyan's  Narrative. — Duff's  Brahmanical  Students  offer  to 
Dissect  the  Human  Subject. — The  Bonojal  Medical  College  created. 
— Bramley,  Henry  Goodeve  and  the  First  Professors. — Modosoo- 
dun  Goopta  and  the  First  Dissection. — Subsequent  Success  of 
College  and  Native  Christian  Physicians. — The  Controversy  about 
Romanizing  the  Oriental  Alphabets. — The  -539  Languages  and 
Dialects  of  Further  Asia. — Sir  C.  Trevelyan's  Account  of  Duff's 
Assistance. — Duff's  Work  for  Vernacular  Education. — Adam's 
Reports  on  the  Indigenous  Schools. — Duff  uses  the  Press. — Es- 
tablishes the  Calcutta  Christian  Observer. — Opinions  on  Biblical 
Criticism. — Freedom  of  the  Press  permitted  by  Lord  W.  Bentinclc, 
and  legally  secured  by  Metcalfe. — In  what  sense  a  Renaissance 
Is  true  of  India. 

During  what  may  appropriately  be  marked  out  as 
this  Duff-Bentinck  period,  the  Hindoo  mind  began  to 
awake  from  its  long  sleep  under  the  dominance,  first 
of  its  own  Brahmanism  broken  only  for  a  time  by  the 
Buddhist  revolt,  and  then  of  the  Arab-Muhammadan 
tyranny,  to  which  it  had  early  lent  the  culture  of  the 
caliphs  of  Bagdad  down  to  that  of  Akbar  at  Agra. 
The  nineteenth  century  in  India  is  the  beginning  of  a 
renaissance  in  a  sense  which  promises  to  be  as  real 
for  Southern  and  Eastern  Asia  as  that  of  the  fifteenth 
was  for  Europe.  In  philology  and  philosophy,  in 
astronomy  and  medicine,  the  Vedic  Hindoos  were  the 


^t.  28.    EAULY    FAITH    AND    SCIENCE    OP   THE    HINDOOS.      207 

teachers  of  Pythagoras  and  Plato,  of  Aristotlo  and 
Hippocrates,  as  well  as  of  the  Arabs  who,  like  Ibn 
Sina,  called  Avicenna  in  the  dark  ages  of  P^urope, 
preserved  the  teaching  of  both  Hindoos  and  Greeks 
for  the  coming  revival  of  letters  in  the  West.  What 
was  the  relation  of  the  Hindoo  Aryans  to  the  Accadian 
or  Chaldean  and  the  first  Semitic  or  Egyptian  civili- 
zations, is  still  a  problem  for  the  solution  of  which 
scholars  are  painfully  collecting  the  materials.  Even 
in  faith,  just  as  Rammohun  Roy  went  back  on  the 
Vedas  and  Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  his  present  represen- 
tative at  the  head  of  the  Brumho  Soraaj,  professes  still 
to  find  there  the  body  of  natural  religion,  so  the  Rev. 
Dr.  K.  M.  Banerjea,  the  first  convert  baptized  by 
Duff,  appeals  to  his  countrymen  to  give  up  their 
idolatry  and  caste,  by  "  The  Aryan  Witness,  or  the 
Testimony  of  Aryan  Scriptures  in  corroboration  of 
Biblical  History  and  the  Rudiments  of  Christian 
Doctrine."  He  beseeches  them  to  turn — to  return — 
to  Christianity  as  to  the  fuller,  because  anew  revealed 
embodiment  of  what  the  Yedas  mysteriously  pro- 
claimed, that  "  the  Lord  of  the  creation  offered  him- 
self a  sacrifice  for  the  benefit  of  gods,"  that  is,  of 
the  mortals  he  redeemed  for  heaven ;  and  that  the 
same  Lord,  "  the  giver  of  self,"  initiated  the  rites  of 
sacrifice  which  is  a  "  reflection  "  of  himself. 

This  renaissance,  this  bringing  to  the  birth  again 
in  faith,  in  philosophy,  in  philology,  was  no  less  re- 
markable in  science.  The  Yedic  system,  which  had 
given  the  West  the  knowledge  of  numbers  and  of  the 
stars,  down  even  to  the  nine  numerals  which  we  incor- 
rectly ascribe  to  the  Arab  middlemen  who  only  revived 
their  use,  was  the  first  to  teach  the  healing  art,  accord- 
ing to  the  greatest  living  authority,  Weber*.     The 

♦  See  his  History  of  Indian  literature  (1878),  pp.  30  and  265. 


208  LIFE    OF  DR.    DUFF.  1 834. 

rcf^iilation  of  tlio  sacrifices  required  alike  astronomical 
observations  and  anatomical  ])ractico.  The  victim  was 
carefully  dissected  that  its  different  parts  might  bo 
assif^aied  to  the  proper  deities.  Each  part  had  its 
distinctive  name.  In  the  Atharvan,  one  of  the  four 
great  Vedas,  we  find  songs  addressed  to  diseases  and 
to  the  herbs  which  heal  them.  Even  in  Alexander's 
time  his  companions  praised  the  Hindoo  physicians, 
and  ascribed  to  them  that  specific  for  snake-bite  which 
has  so  perished,  that  all  the  researches  and  the  science 
of  Sir  Joseph  Fayrer  and  the  old  medical  service  of 
India  have  failed  to  re-discover  it.  To  medicine  the 
Hindoos  assigned  a  secondary  scripture,  the  Ayur 
Veda,  or  "  science  of  life,"  and  derived  it,  like  the 
four  Yedas,  directly  from  the  gods.  Their  first  histori- 
cal writers  were  Charaka,  at  the  head  of  all  surgery, 
and  his  disciple  once  removed,  Susruta,  chief  of  all 
physicians  before  Galen.  The  number  of  their 
medical  works  and  authors  Weber  pronounces  "  ex- 
traordinarily large,"  and  the  sum  of  their  knowledge 
lie  declares  to  have  been  "  most  respectable." 

In  surgery  European  savants  have  borrowed  from 
them  the  operation  of  rhinoplasty.  Even  so  late  as 
1460,  Colot,  the  famous  surgeon  of  Louis  XT.,  begged 
a  man's  life  from  the  gallows  in  order  to  prove  that  the 
operation  of  lithotomy  was  not  necessarily  fatal,  and 
the  man  lived.  But  the  common  Bhoidos  of  India  had 
successfully  practised  the  operation  since  Charaka's 
time.  So  with  the  process  for  cataract,  to  perform 
which  the  princes  of  Europe  used  to  send  into  Asia 
for  oculists.  Dr.  Allan  Webb,  when  professor  of  de- 
scriptive and  surgical  anatomy  in  the  Bengal  Medical 
College,  in  1850,  told  his  Hindoo  students:  "It  is 
very  true  that  the  itinerant  Bhoidos  do  occasionally 
poke  out  eyes,  but  it  is  equally  true  that  I  have  seen  in 
various  parts  of  India  many  eyes  to  which  they  had 


^t.  28.  DECADENCE   OF   UINDOO    MEDICINE.  209 

restored  sight."  Embryotomy  and  mesmerism,  not  to 
mention  more,  have  been  successfully  practised  in 
India  for  ages. 

But  the  oppressive  and  corrupting  influences  of  the 
sacerdotal  Brahmans  soon  extinguished  the  dim  light 
of  scientific  observation  and  practice  in  Southern  and 
Eastern  Asia.  Gifts  to  themselves  took  the  place  of 
natural  remedies.  All  knowledge,  every  form  of  truth 
they  laid  upon  their  own  bed,  which  was  narrower  than 
a  man  could  stretch  himself  on.  Happily  for  the  mil- 
lions whom  they  have  thus  deluded  for  centuries,  from 
Cape  Comorin  to  Java  and  Lhasa  to  Peking,  the  scien- 
tific falsehood  became  easily  manifest  at  the  first  touch 
of  the  senses  honestly  applied.  Disintegration  began 
when  Duff  demonstrated  the  cause  of  the  first  eclipse 
which  took  place  after  he  opened  his  school.  Every 
day's  teaching,  even  apart  from  revealed  truth  which 
shows  the  divinity  of  its  origin  by  concerning  itself 
only  with  man's  spiritual  nature,  hastened  the  process, 
which  is  as  rapid  in  the  secular  as  in  the  Christian 
college.  In  spite  of  itself  the  East  India  Company, 
which  ignorantly  desired  to  maintain  Hindooism  for 
political  ends,  made  its  secular  teachers  missionaries 
of  destruction  at  least,  when  for  the  "  rubbish  "  which 
astounded  Bishop  Heber  at  Benares  they  used  Eng- 
lish to  give  full  play  to  the  evidence  of  the  senses. 
The  elemental  theory  of  medicine  which  Plato  and 
Hippocrates  had  learned  from  Charaka  and  Susruta 
fell  with  the  cosmogony  of  the  tortoise.  Of  science 
as  of  faith  it  became  true  for  a  time,  that  the  edu- 
cated Bengalee  mind  was  empty,  swept  and  gar- 
nished. 

Moved  by  the  purely  utilitarian  consideration  of 
providing  native  doctors  or  dressers  for  the  army 
hospitals.  Government  established  the  native  Medical 
Institution    in   Calcutta  in   1822,  under  an   English 


2IO  LIFE    OP  DB.    DUFF.  1834. 

doctor  and  native  assistants.  Hindostanee,  tlie  lingua 
franca  of  all  India,  was  the  language  of  instruction, 
and  the  scientific  nomenclature  of  the  "West  was  ren- 
dered into  Arabic.  Four  years  after,  medical  classes 
were  opened  at  the  Sanscrit  College  to  read  Charaka 
and  Susruta,  and  at  the  Madrissa  to  study  Avicenna 
and  the  other  Arabic  writers.  Thus  the  orientalists 
dreamed  they  could  give  the  people  of  India  the  bless- 
ings of  the  healing  art  as  developed  in  the  West,  just 
as  they  persisted  in  spending  that  people's  money  on 
the  printing  of  books  which  their  scholars  scorned,  and 
in  the  payment  of  youths  to  learn  what  was  despised 
because  of  its  methods  and  what  was  pernicious 
because  of  its  falsity.  Dr.  Tytler,  the  head  of  the  new 
institution,  was  one  of  the  most  fanatic  of  the  orien- 
talists. His  translations,  afterwards  condemned  by 
his  own  medical  brethren,  proved  to  be  among  the 
most  costly  of  the  wasteful  pubhcations.  The  only 
anatomical  instruction  which  he  dared  or  desired  to 
give,  was  from  sundry  artificial  preparations  or  models, 
from  the  lower  animals,  and  occasional  post  mortem 
examinations  of  persons  dying  in  the  general  hospital. 
For  a  Hindoo  of  caste  to  touch  a  dead  body,  even  that 
of  his  father,  was  pollution  to  be  atoned  for  by  days 
of  purification  and  much  alms.  To  break  through 
that  iron  prejudice  Dr.  Tytler  and  the  orientalists 
declared  to  be  impossible,  and  they  did  not  try.  Yet 
their  own  little  scholarship,  or  unscholarly  preposses- 
sions, did  not  carry  them  so  far  as  to  translate  Susrutii. 
They  would  have  learned  that  the  literature  classified 
under  the  term  "  Ayur  Yeda  '*  carefully  provides  for 
dissection  of  the  human  subject,  and  that  after  a 
fashion  so  disgusting  as  almost  to  justify  the  later 
superstition.  It  was  to  be  made  a  putrid  carcase  by 
lying  for  seven  days  in  still  water,  and  then  to  be  rubbed 
so  that  each  integument  and  part  might  be  studied. 


^t.28.         TFTE    COMMITTEE    ON   MEDICAL   EDUCATION.  211 

But,  adds  the  Galen  of  India,  who  was  no  materiahst, 
"  the  life  of  the  body  is  too  ethereal  to  be  distinguished 
by  this  process." 

Duff  was  roused,  by  his  own  principles  and  his  daily 
experience  in  the  school,  to  protest  against  Dr.  Tytlcr's 
folly.  If  his  teaching  were  of  force  that  all  trutli  is 
a  unity,  and  that  for  the  Hindoos  of  that  generation 
truth  could  be  got  only  through  the  language  of 
their  rulers,  of  Shakespeare  and  Bacon,  and  the  Biblo 
of  James,  it  was  of  force  in  every  branch  of  ^earning, 
scientific  and  practical  as  well  as  other.  "  Only  use 
English  as  the  medium,"  he  declared,  "  and  you  will 
break  the  backbone  of  caste,  you  will  open  up  the  way 
for  teaching  anatomy  and  all  other  branches  fearlessly, 
for  the  enlightened  native  mind  will  take  its  own 
course  in  spite  of  all  the  threats  of  the  Brahraanical 
traditionists."  In  1833  Lord  William  Bcntinck,  not 
less  attracted  by  the  controversy  than  compelled  by 
the  deplorable  state  of  medical  education,  appointed  a 
committee  to  report  on  the  whole  subject.  The  mem- 
bers were  :  Surgeon  J.  Grant,  the  Apothecary  General ; 
Assistant-surgeons  Bramley  and  Spens,  Baboo  Ram 
Komul  Sen,  T.  C.  C.  Sutherland,  the  secretary  to  the 
Committee  of  Public  Instruction,  and  Sir  C.  Trevclyan. 
For  twelve  months  did  these  authorities,  professional 
and  educational,  take  evidence  and  deliberate,  having 
submitted  to  the  combatants  on  both  sides  from  forty 
to  fifty  detailed  questions.  What  was  the  effect  of 
Duff's  answers  to  these,  following  his  experience,  we 
are  enabled  by  Sir  Charles  himself  to  show  in  this  ac- 
count of  the  conflict : — 

**  It  was  now  proposed  to  raise  up  a  class  of  native 
medical  practitioners,  educated  on  sound  European 
principles,  to  supersede  the  native  quacks,  who,  unac- 
quainted with  anatomy  or  the  simplest  principles  of 
chemical  action,  preyed  on  the  people,  and  hesitated 


212  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1834. 

not  to  uso  tlio  most  dangerous  drugs  and  poisons. 
The  battle  which  had  been  so  well  contested  in  the 
Education  Committee  was  fought  over  again  in  this 
new  field.  The  superintendent  of  the  Medical  Institu- 
tion, a  learned  and  enthusiastic  orientalist,  set  in  array 
the  arguments  of  his  party,  and  confidently  predicted 
the  failure  of  the  attempt,  while  Dr.  Duff  took  the 
opposite  side.  The  following  extracts  from  the  report 
of  the  special  committee  show  how  largely  we  are 
indebted  to  him  for  this  great  reform  : — 

"  Tho  Ilov.  Mr.  Duff,  on  tho  other  band,  although  acknow- 
ledging that  the  native  languages,  by  which  wc  understand  the 
Bengalee  in  tho  lower  provinces  t'.nd  tlio  Urdu  in  the  hij^dier, 
alone  are  available;  for  imparting  an  elementary  education  to  tho 
Tnass  of  tlie  people,  alHrms  that  the  popular  language  does  nf)t 
afford  an  adequate  medium  for  communicating  a  knf)wl(.'dgo  of 
the  In'gher  depiu'tmonts  of  literature  and  science.  *  No  original 
works  of  the  descrij)tion  wanted/  he  observes,  *  have  yc.'t  ap- 
peared in  the  native  languages ;  and  thou<^h  much  of  a  higlily 
useful  nature  has  been  provided  through  European  talent  and 
perseverance,  no  translations  have  been  made  in  any  degree 
suflicient  to  supply  materials  for  the  prosecution  oi"  the  higher 
object  contemplated ;  neither  is  it  likely  in  the  nature  of 
things  that,  either  by  original  publications  or  translations  of 
standaid  works,  the  deficiency  can  be  fully  or  adequately 
remedied  for  such  a  number  of  years  to  come  tas  may  leave  tho 
whole  of  tho  present  generation  sleeping  with  their  fathers.' 

"We  beg  now  to  call  your  Lordship's  attention  to  the 
opinions  of  tho  Rev.  Mr.  Duff.  To  the  question  whether, 
in  order  to  teach  the  princij)les  of  any  science  to  native 
boys,  he  considered  it  necessary  that  they  should  know 
Sanscrit,  Arabic  and  Persian,  tho  reverend  gentleman 
I'cplies  that,  '  In  reference  to  tho  acquisition  of  European 
science,  the  study  of  tho  languages  mentioned  would  be  a 
sheer  waste  of  labour  and  time;  since,  viewed  as  media  for 
receiving  and  treasuring  the  stores  of  modern  science,  there  is 
at  present  no  possible  connection  between  them.'  On  tho 
other  hand,  in  reply  to  the  question  whether  he  thought  it 
possible  to  teach  native  boys  the   principles   of  any  scienco 


Ait.28.  SCIKNOE    TAUGHT    TIIUOgGU     ENGLISH.  II 3 

through  tho  medium  of  tho  Eiiglisli  hinguage,  lie  roplitid  that 
'the  cxperienco  of  tho  last  tliroo  years  lias,  if  possible,  coii- 
lirmeJ  tho  conviction  ho  previously  entertained,  not  merely 
that  it  is  possible  to  t(;ach  native  V)oys  the  principles  of  any 
science  through  the  medium  of  the  J*]iiglish  language,  but  that, 
in  tho  present  incipient  state  ofiufoive  improvement,  it  is  next 
to  impossible  to  teach  them  successfully  tho  princi])les  oi  any 
science  through  any  other  medium  than  tho  English.'  He 
further  records  his  opinion,  that  tho  study  of  the  Vhiglish 
langunge  might  be  rendered  vo.r^^  popular  among  ilie  natives. 
*The  sole  reason,'  ho  justly  observes,  'why  tlu;  lOnglisJi  is  not 
now  more  a  general  and  anxious  objc.'ct  of  ac(piisition  among 
the  natives,  is  the  degree  of  uncertainty  under  which  they  (tho 
natives)  still  labour  as  to  tlie  ultimate  intentions  of  Govern- 
uient,  and  whether  it  will  ever  lead  them  into  paths  of  useful- 
ness, pr(jfit,  or  honour;  only  iet  the  intentions  oi"  (lovernment 
bo  oflicially  announced,  and  thera  will  be  a  gcnci'ul  m<jvement 
among  all  the  more  i-espectable  classes.'  IJut  the  teaching  of 
English  ac(juires  much  importance  when  wo  consider  it,  with 
Mr.  Duff,  as  the  gi'and  reme<ly  for  obviating  the  prejudices 
of  tho  natives  against  practical  anatomy.  '  'J'he  English  lan- 
guage,' ho  urges,  '  opens  up  a  wliolo  woi'ld  <jf  new  ideas,  and 
examples  of  success  in  every  department  of  science;  and  tho 
ideas  so  true,  and  tho  examples  so  striking,  work  mightily  on 
the  susceptible  nn'nds  of  native  youth;  so  that  by  the;  litne  they 
have  ac(juii"ed  a  mastery  over  tho  Thiglish  language,  under 
judicious  and  enlightened  instructors,  their  minds  are  almost 
metamorplujsed  into  the  texture  and  cast  of  European  youth, 
and  they  cannot  help  expressing  their  utter  contempt  for 
Hindoo  superstition  and  pi-(;judices.' 

"There  is  an  argument  of  fact  put  in  by  Mr.  Duff,  which  is 
admirably  to  the  point.  Wo  allude  to  tho  introducti(jn  of  tho 
I'higlish  language  and  of  English  science  among  the  Scottish 
Highlanders,  whose  native  language,  to  this  day,  is  the  Gaelic. 
The  parallel  is  a  very  fair  one  ;  ^'je  no  pe(^j)le  were  more  super- 
stitious, more  wedded  to  their  own  customs,  and  raoro  averse 
to  leaving  their  native  country,  than  tho  Highlanders  :  but 
since  the  introduction  of  tlio  English  language  among  thera, 
the  state  of  things  is  much  changed.  The  same  observation 
applies  to  Ireland  and  Wales,  where,  as  in  the  IHghlands  of 
Scotland,  the   English   ia    a    foreign    language ;    and    yet   ita 


214  LIFE    OF   DIl.   DUFF.  1834, 

acquisition  is  eagerly  sought  after  by  the  natives  of  all  these 
countries  as  an  almost  certain  passport  to  employment.  There 
are  medical  men,  natives  of  these  countries,  scattered  all  over 
the  world,  whose  mother  tongue  is  Welsh,  Irish,  or  Gaelic, 
which,  as  children,  they  spoke  for  years — just  as  the  children 
of  European  parents  in  ludia  speak  Hiudostaneo  and  Bengalee ; 
with  this  difference,  however,  that  the  latter  soon  forget  the 
Oriental  tongues ;  while  the  youth  who  acquire  the  indigenous 
language  of  Ireland,  the  Scottish  Highlands,  and  Wales,  never 
lose  the  language  of  those  countries,  because  they  do  not  quit 
them  till  a  more  advanced  period  of  life.  For  the  first  years 
of  youth  the  Highlanders  at  school,  even  of  all  ranks,  think  in 
the  Gaelic ;  but  this  does  not  prevent  their  acquiring  such  a 
fluent  and  business-like  knowledge  of  English  as  to  enable 
them  to  pass  through  life  with  credit  and  not  unfrequcntly 
with  distinction.  What  is  there  in  the  condition,  physical  or 
moral,  of  the  natives  of  this  country  that  should  render  them 
incapable  of  acquiring  English  as  easily  as  the  Irish,  the  High- 
landers, and  Welsh  ?  " 

"  The  expectations  with  whicTi  this  change  was  made 
have  been  completely  realized.  The  most  intractable 
of  the  national  prejudices  has  given  way  before  the 
exigencies  of  the  dissecting  room,  and  European 
medical  science  has  taken  root  in  India,  whereby  one 
of  the  greatest  boons  ever  conferred  on  suffering 
humanity  has  been  extended  to  that  country." 

This  was  not  all.  Duff  supplied  the  old  solution — 
solvituT  amhulando.  The  commission  visited  his  school, 
in  common  with  all  in  which  English  was  taught,  but 
he  did  not  forewarn  the  youths  of  their  coming. 
Taking  the  senior  class,  which  had  been  nearly  four 
years  under  English  instruction,  into  a  small  room 
by  themselves,  he  invited  the  visitors  to  make  any 
inquiries  in  any  way  they  chose.  Timidly  and  after 
a  roundabout  fashion  did  the  Apothecary  General 
approach  the  dreaded  subject  of  dissection,  for  the 
first  thing  he  learned  and  indeed  saw  was  that  the  lads 


M.  28.  THE    ANATOMISTS    IN   THE   MISSIONARY    SCHOOL.     2 1 5 

were  chiefly  Brahmans.  He  thus  began  :  "  You  have 
got  many  sacred  looks,  have  you  not?"  "  Oh  yes," 
was  the  reply,  "  wo  have  many  Shasters  beheved  to  be 
of  divine  authority.  Some  are  very  old,  and  others 
have  been  written  by  Rishis  (holy  sages)  inspired  by  the 
gods.  They  are  upon  all  subjects,  literature,  science 
such  as  it  is,  chronology,  geography  and  genealogies  of 
the  gods."  ''  Have  you  not  also  m'^dical  Shasters,  which 
profess  to  teach  everything  connected  with  the  heal- 
ing art  ?  "  "  Oh  yes,"  they  said,  "  but  these  are  in  the 
keeping  of  the  Bhoido  or  physician  caste ;  none  of  us 
belong  to  that  caste,  so  that  we  do  not  know  much  about 
them."  "  Do  your  doctors  learn  or  practise  what  we 
call  anatomy,  or  the  examination  of  the  human  body 
with  a  view  to  ascertain  its  real  structure  in  order 
skilfully  to  treat  wounds,  bruises,  fractures,  etc.?" 
"  We  have  heard  them  say  that  anatomy  is  taught  in 
the  Shasters,  but  it  cannot  be  like  your  anatomy." 
"  Why  not  ?  "  *'  Because  respectable  Hindoos  are 
forbidden  by  imperative  rules  of  caste  to  touch  a  dead 
body  for  any  purpose  whatever ;  so  that  from  examina- 
tion of  the  dead  body  our  doctors  can  learn  nothing 
about  the  real  structure  of  the  human  body."  "  Whence 
then  have  they  got  the  anatomy  which,  you  say,  is 
taught  in  the  Shasters  ?  "  "  They  have  got  it  out  of 
their  own  brains,  though  the  belief  is  that  this  strange 
Shaster  anatomy  must  be  true  or  correct,  it  being 
revealed  by  the  gods ;  but  we  now  look  upon  this  as 
nonsense."  '*  What  then,"  said  the  commissioner,  "  if 
the  Government  should  propose  to  establish  a  medical 
college  for  Hindoos  under  European  doctors  like  the 
medical  colleges  in  Europe  ?  Would  you  approve 
or  disapprove  of  such  a  measure,  or  how  would  it 
be  viewed  by  the  natives  generally?"  "We  certainly 
who  have  been  taught  European  knowledge  through 
the  medium  of  English  would  cordially  approve,  but 


2l6  LIFE    OP   DE.    DUFF.  1834. 

our  ignorant  orthodox  countrymen  would  as  certainly 
disapprove."  "Well  then,  were  a  college  of  this  kind 
established,  would  any  of  you  be  disposed  to  attend 
it ;  or  would  there  be  insuperable  objections  in 
your  minds  against  your  doing  so  ?  "  "  Not  at  all," 
they  said.  "  If  wo  were  not  already  otherwise  com- 
mitted to  some  course  of  life  which  would  prevent 
us,  we  would  be  very  glad  to  attend."  "What!" 
said  the  commissioner,  "  would  you  actually  be 
prepared  to  touch  a  dead  body  for  the  study  of  ana- 
tomy ? "  "  Most  certainly,"  said  the  head  youth  of 
the  class,  who  was  a  Brahman ;  "  I,  for  one,  would 
have  no  scruples  in  the  matter.  It  is  all  prejudice, 
old  stupid  prejudice  of  caste,  of  which  I  at  least  have 
got  rid."  The  others  heartily  chimed  in  with  this 
utterance.  The  commissioners  were  highly  gratified. 
The  result  of  their  inquiry  exceeded  their  most 
sanguine  expectations.  They  thanked  the  young  men 
for  the  promptness  of  their  response,  and  promised  to 
report  their  liberal  disregard  of  hereditary  prejudice 
to  the  Governor  General.  His  Excellency's  surprise 
did  not  prevent  him  from  completing  the  case  by  con- 
sulting the  orthodox  pundits.  These  reported  that 
the  prohibition  against  touching  a  dead  body  was  most 
stern,  but  they  did  not  find  it  anywhere  expressed  in 
the  Shasters  that  Hindoos  are  forbidden  to  touch  the 
human  subject  for  anatomica^  purposes.  Yet  both  these 
and  the  Muhammadan  Moulvies  stirred  up  the  com- 
munity to  petition  the  Government  to  remain  satisfied 
with  the  study  of  the  Sanscrit  and  Arabic  treatises. 

Nor  was  Duff  alone  in  this.  David  Hare,  of  the 
Hindoo  College,  seems  to  have  been  equally  zealous, 
although  we  have  no  record  of  his  action  beyond 
the  fact.  The  Governor-General  in  Council  embodied 
the  unanimous  conclusions  of  the  special  committee 
in  an  order  dated  28th  January,  1835,  abolishing  the 


j£l^  28.  THE    i'lEST   DISSECTION    BY   A   HINDOO.  217 

Medical  Institution  and  classes,  and  creating  a  new 
college  under  the  Committee  of  Education  for  "  tbo 
instruction  of  a  certain  number  of  native  youths  in 
the  various  branches  of  medical  science."  The  new 
college  was  declared  open  to  all  classes  of  natives, 
without  exception  as  to  creed  or  caste,  who  could  read 
and  write  English  and  Bengalee,  or  English  and 
Hindostanee.  Eurasians  and  Europeans  were  after- 
wards included.  The  English  language  and  the  West- 
ern scientific  standards  were  declared  the  medium 
and  the  test  of  instruction.  On  the  1st  June,  1835, 
the  classes  were  opened  in  an  old  house  in  the  rear  ot 
the  Hindoo  College,  only  to  be  removed  by  Lord 
Auckland  to  a  building  then  pronounced  "  magnifi- 
cent," but  long  since  too  small  for  the  thousands  who 
form  what  has  proved  to  be  the  largest  medical  school 
in  the  world.  Dr.  Bramley,  the  first  principal,  died 
soon  after,  and  the  early  success  of  the  great  experi- 
ment is  associated  with  the  name  of  Dr.  Henry  Goodeve, 
who  still  survives.  With  him  were  associated  the 
Danish  botanist  of  Serampore,  Dr.  Wallich ;  the  Irish 
professor  of  chemistry,  Dr.  O'Shaughnessy,  who  gave 
India  the  electric  telegraph,  and  two  others.  David 
Hare  was  secretary.  Nobly,  not  less  effectually  than 
Duff's  ardent  enthusiasm  predicted,  has  the  Bengal 
Medical  College,  with  its  hospitals,  under  the  ablest 
members  of  the  Company's  medical  service  and  Ben- 
galee professors  who  have  risen  from  the  students' 
benches,  realized  what  Lord  W.  Bentinck's  committee 
aimed  at  when  it  laid  down  for  it  a  curriculum  "  ample, 
comprehensive  and  worthy  of  a  great  Government, 
not  intended  merely  to  supply  the  wants  of  the  State 
but  of  the  people,  and  to  become  a  moral  engine  of 
great  utility  and  power." 

How  did  Duff's  Brahman  students  and  those  of  the 
Hindoo  College  stand  the  test  when  the  hour  came  for 


2l8  LIFE   OF  DR.    DUFF.  1834. 

tlio  first  dissection  ?  That  hour  came  after  the  first 
six  months'  study.  The  time  was  then  recalled 
when  the  medical  class  in  the  Hindoo  College  mot 
for  the  first  cutting  up  of  a  kid,  and  the  college  gates 
were  closed  to  prevent  popular  interruption  of  the 
awful  act !  Following  his  professor,  Modosoodun 
Goopta,  of  the  Bhoido  or  physician  caste,  was  the  first 
native  to  handle  and  plunge  his  knife  into  the  subject 
provided  for  the  purpose.  Rajendranath  Mitter  fol- 
lowed, and  their  fellow-students  quickly  imitated  this 
act  of  moral  courage.  Thus,  nearly  three  thousand 
years  after  Si.sruta  and  his  loathsome  instructions,  the 
study  of  practical  anatomy  by  the  natives  of  India 
was  established.  So  fast  did  it  spread,  that  a  purely 
Hindostanee  class  and  then  a  Bengalee  class  were 
opened,  to  meet  the  need  of  subordinate  assistants  in 
the  military  and  civil  hospitals,  and  of  the  cities  and 
villages  of  the  country.  From  sixty  in  1837  the  number 
of  subjects  for  the  dissecting  room  rose  to  above  five 
hundred  in  1844,  and  now  must  be  three  times  greater. 
Dwarkanath  Tagore  and  Dr.  H.  Goodevo  soon  took 
four  students  to  England  to  seek  a  British  diploma;  of 
these  two  were  Christians  and  one  was  a  convert  of 
the  General  Assembly's  Institution.  Ever  since.  Duff's 
college  has  sent  some  of  its  ablest  converts  as  well  as 
Hindoo  students  to  take  the  highest  honours  in  the 
medical  faculty  of  the  Calcutta  University.  One  of 
them  is  now  a  professor  in  the  Medical  College,  and 
several  have  entered  the  covenanted  service  by  competi- 
tion with  Scottish,  English  and  Irish  graduates.  The 
tale  of  wliat  the  medical  colleges  of  India — for  others 
sprang  up  in  imitation  of  Bengal,  at  Bombay,  Madras, 
Lahore  and  Agra — have  done  for  humanity,  for  the 
sciences  allied  with  medicine,  and  for  enlightenment 
throughout  the  peninsula,  in  the  half -century  since  Daff 
began  his  apostleship,  would   form   one  of  the  most 


/Et.  28.     TUE    THIRD    BATTLE    WITH    THE    OUT ENTA LISTS.       219 

brilliant  chapters  in  the  history  of  progress,  but  it  is 
not  for  us  to  tell  it  here.         ~    * 

In  yet  a  third  field  did  Duff  and  Trevelyan,  aided 
by  that  accomplished  scholar  of  the  Baptist  Mission 
press,  Dr.  Yates,  meet  the  orientalist  party.  Tho 
committee  of  the  Calcutta  School  Book  Society  was 
the  scene  of  the  conflict.  That  body  had  succeeded 
in  supplying  pure  English  literature  to  the  natives 
on  mercantile  principles,  while  the  Government 
Oriental  colleges  had  their  shelves  groaning  under 
expensive  works  which  no  native  would  take  as  a  gift, 
unless  also  paid  to  read  them,  and  at  which  true 
scholars  laughed.  In  1833  Mr.  Thompson,  a  Govern- 
ment teacher  at  Delhi,  sought  the  patronage  of  the 
society  for  an  English  and  Hind.itanee  dictionary 
in  the  Roman  character  only,  designed  to  assist 
natives  of  the  upper  provinces  in  the  acquisition  of 
English  and  Europeans  in  the  study  of  Hindostauee. 
Dr.  Yates,  as  secretary,  recommended  the  purchase  of 
two  hundred  copies.  Mr.  James  Prinsep  condemned 
the  use  of  the  Roman  alphabet  by  any  but  Europeans 
as  "  ultra-radicalism."  Dr.  Tytler,  whose  foible  was 
a  desire  to  stand  well  with  the  few  Oriental  scholars 
iu  Europe,  protested  that  such  a  book  would  "  com- 
promise our  character  very  much,  particularly  with 
European  scholars,  in  whose  eyes  the  Oriental  litera- 
ture of  Calcutta  does  not  stand  very  high  at  present." 
Sir  Charles  Trevelyan  demolished  both  in  a  long 
minute,  in  which  he  exposed  the  unscholarly  character 
and  expense  of  Dr.  Tytler's  translations,  showing  that 
Rs.  105,426  (£1 0,543)  of  public  money  had  thus  been 
wasted  in  the  ten  years  since  1824.  On  this  James 
Prinsep  cast  the  broad  shield  of  his  genuine  learning 
over  the  wounded  Tytler,  in  a  minute  which  con- 
cluded with  this  retort  on  the "  alleged  superiority  of 
English  to  Sanscrit  or  Perso- Arabic  orthography  : — "  I 


220  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1834. 

never  heard  of  a  mother  who  did  not  complain  of  the 
difficulty  of  teaching  a  child  the  difference  between 
C  and  S,  and  I  will  ask  whether  a  native  child 
would  as  readily  recognise  tlie  *  City  of  God'  (Allah- 
abad) in  the  '  isle  of  bats '  and  the  *  palace  at 
Ghazeepore *  in  *  Chelsea  tune '  {chuhul  sitoo}i)."  Dr. 
Tytler  felt  as  grateful  to  James  Prinsep  as  Homer's 
hero  when,  worsted  in  battle,  he  was  hid  under  the 
apron  of  his  celestial  mother,  Aphrodite.  After 
Trevelyan  had  slain  Prinsep,  Duff  entered  the  field 
through  the  press  and  anonymously,  while  Mr.  H. 
Thoby  Prinsep  in  turn  brought  the  heavy  artillery  of 
the  Asiatic  Society  to  bear  upon  him. 

The  merits  of  the  eontroversy  are  these :  In  the 
East  Indies,  as  influenced  from  their  metropolis  Cal- 
cutta— including  in  that  term  Dutch  Java  and  now 
French  Anam — there  are  eight  distinct  ethnological 
families,  containing  243  spoken  and  written  languages 
and  296  dialects  of  these  languages,  or  539  in  all. 
These  have  to  be  mastered — having  been  reduced  to 
writing  in  many  cases  by  missionaries  and  officials — 
before  the  half  of  the  human  race  who  use  them  can 
be  influenced  for  good.  They  present  two  sets  of 
difficulties,  arising  from  their  varying  written  charac- 
ters and  very  different  grammatical  structure.  Can 
the  former  class  of  difficulties  not  be  removed  or 
modified  ?  If  the  English  language  and  literature  are 
to  be  used  as  the  medium  and  the  instrument  of  civil- 
ization in  the  effete  East,  why  not  the  one  Roman 
alphabet  in  which  they  are  expressed  ? — such  was  the 
very  natural  reasoning  of  the  Anglicists  of  1833.  That 
this  is  no  dream  may  be  accepted  from  the  fact  that 
the  great  scholar  Lepsius  has  prepared  a  "  standard 
alphabet,"  and  that  the  Boden  Sanscrit  professor 
at  Oxford  is  an  earnest  advocate  of  Romanising,  while 
Professor  Max  Miiller  has  a  similar  plan  of  his  own. 


JEt  28.     THE    LANGUAGKS    AND    ALl'IIAUETS    OF    INDIA.  221 

One  character  is  necessary,  and  that  has,  of  course, 
been  the  Roman  thus  far  for  tongues  rudiiced  to 
writing  for  the  first  time  by  missionaries,  wlio  desire 
to  tell  and  write  for  these  simple  people  "  the  won- 
derful works  of  God "  in  Christ.  But  more  than 
this,  Mr.  Cust  is  within  the  truth,  as  every  scholar 
will  admit,  when  he  declares,  *'  It  may  be  accepted 
as  a  scientific  fact  that  all  the  characters  used  in  the 
East  Indies  can  sooner  or  later  be  traced  back  to  the 
Asoka  inscriptions,  and  through  them  to  the  Phosnician 
alphabet,  and  thence  backwards  to  the  hieratic  ideo- 
graphs of  the  old  kingdom  of  Egypt,  and  thence  to  the 
venerable  hieroglyphics  of  the  fourth  dynasty."  The 
solitary  exception  is  the  Chinese  character  used  in 
Anam.* 

More  than  three  rivals  compete  to  represent  the 
539  languages  and  dialects,  for  the  Indian,  Arabic 
and  Roman  are  complicated  by  additions  or  adapta- 
tions to  represent  all  the  sounds  of  each,  till  religion 
is  invoked  to  consecrate  some,  so  that  the  orthodox 
Hindoo  will  not  use  the  Perso- Arabic,  nor  the  strict 
Muhammadan  the  sacred  Nagree.  If  one  alphabet 
in  the  good  Asoka's  days,  not  long  after  Alexander 
the  Great,  why  not  one  again — why  not  one  at  any 
rate,  and  that  the  Roman,  for  all  the  peoples  who  learn 
writing,  and  even  reading,  for  tlie  first  time  from  the 
Christian  missionary  and  the  British  and  other  Euro- 
pean Governments  in  Asia  ?  Though  deprecating  as 
injudicious  and  impracticable  any  attempt  to  supersede 
the  established  characters  of  cultivated  languages  by 
the  introduction  of  the  alien  Roman  character,  Mr. 
Cust  urges  the  use  of  the  standard  of  Lepsius  in  the 
case  of  languages  hitherto  unwritten.  In  1878  he  used 
this  language,  which  is  the  echo  of  Duffs  half  a  century 


♦  A  Sketch  of  the  Modern  Languages  of  the  East  Indies.     1878. 


2  22  LIFE   OP   Da.    DUFF.  1834. 

ago: — "It  is  a  remarkable  phenomenon  that  the  foun- 
tains of  so  many  languages  and  dialects  should  have 
been  unsealed  just  at  the  moment  when  the  intellectual, 
mechanical  and  religious  powers  of  Engla\'d  and  Holland 
were  at  their  height,  ready  to  undertr.ke  the  task  of 
translating  the  Bible  into  scores  of  languages,  foi- 
which  task,  even  if  the  opportunity  had  offered  itself, 
English  scholars  wore,  last  century,  as  unfitted  as  the 
Spanish  and  Portuguese  are  even  now  unfitted,  and  as 
unwilling  to  lend  themselves  to  the  task  as  the  Italians, 
French  and  Russians  are  even  now  imwilling." 

We  have  received  this  narrative  of  Duff's  advocacy 
of  the  Romanising  system  from  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan, 
who  sought  officially  to  carry  it  out  when  Governor  of 
Madras.  lie  has  recently  published  as  an  illustration  of 
it  "Riibinsan  Kruso,"  being  a  translation,  through  the 
Hindostanee,  of  Defoe's  immortal  work  into  Persian 
in  the  Roman  character.  To  that  Mr.  Tolbort,  of  tho 
Bengal  civil  service,  as  editor,  has  prefixed  an  exposition 
and  defence  of  the  application  of  the  Roman  alphabet 
to  the  languages  of  the  East,  declaring  that  that  alplia- 
bet  "will  be  to  the  education  of  Asia  what  George 
Stephenson's  rails  were  and  are  to  the  locomotive  steam 
engine."  The  system  of  transliteration  was  that  of  Sir 
William  Jones,  who  followed  the  Italian  or  continental 
European  sound  of  the  vowels,  while  Dr.  Gilchrist 
afterwards  sought  to  fix  them  to  the  moro  familiar 
of  their  various  sounds  in  English.  Thus  the  well- 
known  "Ameer"  of  the  latter  is  the  "Amir"  of  the  for- 
mer, and  the  "  Punjab  "  is  "  Panjab."  The  advantage  of 
the  Gilchrist  transliteration  of  proper  names  for  purely 
English  readers  is  evident ;  that  of  the  Jones  system 
for  Romanising  and  strictly  scholarly  purposes  is  not 
less  so.  The  German  orientalists  ha  '3  recently  pub- 
lished a  whole  iseries  of  the  Oriental  classics  in  Roman 
type.     In   the  twenty  years   ending  1857  the  Bible, 


ALt  28.         BOMANISINO   THE    ORIENTAL   ALPHABETS.  223 

the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  the  Koran,  and  forty-thrco 
other  religious  or  educational  works  had  appeared  in 
Romanised  Hindostanee.  Sir  C.  Trevelyan  writes : — 
♦♦  It  was  proposed  to  extend  to  India  the  advantogo 
which  Europe  enjoys  of  making  one  charactei  servo 
for  many  different  languages  and  dialects,  whereby  it 
might  bo  at  once  seen  how  far  they  agreed  or  differed, 
and  a  tendency  might  bo  created  towards  a  common 
Indian  language  and  literature,  of  which  English 
would  be  the  connecting  link,  and  the  Christian  re- 
ligion the  principal  source  of  inspiration.  Eastern 
writing  is  thoroughly  phonetic;  that  is,  the  duo 
relation  of  sign  and  sound  is  consistently  maintained 
throughout,  so  that  a  simple  transliteration  into  the 
Roman  character  gives  a  correct  representation  of  the 
sounds  in  all  the  native  languages;  and  during  the 
long  period  which  has  elapsed  since  the  invention  of 
printing,  the  typography  of  these  letters,  with  all  its 
accessories  of  punctuation,  capital  letters,  italics,  and 
other  mechanical  helps,  has  been  so  improved  that 
they  have  become  a  much  more  efficient  anc^.  economical 
medium  for  expressing  the  languages  of  the  East  than 
the  various  alphabetical  systems  in  actual  use  tliere. 
This  would  also  be  the  salvation  of  the  native  lan- 
guages, which  have  a  hard  struggle  in  their  com- 
petition with  the  all-powerful  English,  freighted  with 
so  many  substantial  advantages,  and  it  would  h,T,vo  a 
highly  salutary  political  effect  by  intimately  associat- 
ing our  nation  with  the  growth  of  the  new  Indian 
literature,  and  by  removing  a  serious  practical  obstacle 
to  satisfactory  mutual  intercourse. 

"  This  system  has  made  steady  progress,  notwith- 
standing every  discouragement,  and  its  advantages 
have  become  so  generally  recognised  that  effectuaj 
arrangements  are  likely  soon  to  be  made  for  its  grad'ial 
adoption;    but    the    undertaking    might    have   been 


224  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1834. 

strangled  in  its  birth  if  Dr.  Duff  had  not  given  it  his 
strenuous  support.  The  turning  point  of  the  contro- 
versy was  marked  by  the  publication  of  three  papers 
by  Dr.  Duff,  in  the  first  of  which  the  *  possibility,' 
*  practicability,'  and  '  expediency '  of  substituting  the 
Roman  for  the  Indian  alphabets  was  discussed,  and  in 
the  last  two  a  practical  schemo  for  that  purpose  was 
worked  out  in  detail,  and  objections  were  answered. 
These  papers  give  a  high  idea  of  the  logical  powers 
and  critical  acumen  of  Dr.  Duff.  They  settled  the 
system  on  its  present  basis,  and  may  be  read  to  this 
day  with  interest  and  advantage. 

"  It  was  impossible  to  work,  as  I  did,  with  Dr.  Duff, 
without  having  his  character  clearly  unfolded  before 
me,  and  I  must  be  allowed  to  indulge  my  feelings  by 
briefly  saying  what  I  think  of  it.  He  combined  child- 
like simplicity  and  sincerity  with  intellectual  powers 
of  no  mean  order,  and  his  fervid  Celtic  nature  imparted 
warmth  and  energy  to  everything  he  undertook.  His 
disinterestedness,  and  freedom  from  selfish  motives  of 
all  kinds,  appeared  to  me  to  be  perfect.  His  whole 
being  seemed  to  be  engrossed  in  the  one  great  object 
of  his  life,  compared  with  which  all  merely  personal 
motives  were  of  secondary  consideration.  He  was  a 
truly  loveable  character.  My  feeling  towards  him  is 
compounded  of  affection  and  respect,  and  I  should 
find  it  difficult  to  say  which  of  these  predominates." 

Thus  far  the  battle  begun  and  carried  on  by  Duff 
had  been  for  the  people.  English  he  fought  for,  as 
the  weapon  of  truth's  warfare  at  that  stage  not  only 
against  the  intolerance  of  the  quasi-orientalists  who 
squandered  the  people's  money  on  a  few  scornful 
Brahmans  and  Moulvies,  but  against  the  equal  intoler- 
ance of  their  own  leaders  in  the  Hindoo  College,  who 
excluded  the  Ic  .  er  castes  even  from  secular  instruc- 
tion.     Through   the  natural   heads   and   respectable 


yEt.  28.        HIS   WORK   FOR   VERNACULAR   EDUCATION.  2:5 

castes  of  tlie    Hindoos  he  determined  that  Western 
truth  and  English  benevolence  should  reach  the  masses 
and  fertilise  the  literature   of   their  motlor    tongue. 
Hence  his  own  early  devotion  to  Bengalee  at  a  time 
when  his  busy  nights  were  no  more  his  own  than  his 
exhausting  days,  and  the  instinct  of  genius  drove  him 
to  take  the  tide  of  English  in  native  society  near  the 
flood  that  he  might  guide  it  to   faith  and  all  that  a 
reasonable   faith   here   involves,  in    social   purity,  in 
public  enlightenment,  in  national  revival.     Hence  the 
Bengalee  department  in  his   school,  and  the  simulta- 
neous teaching  and  reaction  on  each  other  of  English 
and  the  vernacular.     Without  that  the  taunt  of  the 
barren  orientalists  might  have  had  some  justification. 
English  might  have  become  only  another  official  jar- 
gon like  court  Persian,  to  be    used  by  the    initiated 
few  for  the  oppression  of  the  many,  and  the  widening 
of  the  gulf   between   alien  rulers  and  ignorant  ruled. 
From  that  memorable  Monday,  2nd  of  August,  1830, 
when  the  Highland  lad  opened  his  school  with  our 
Lord's  Prayer  in  Bengalee,  to  the  day  just  after  the 
Mutiny,  when  he  introduced  the  Christian  Vernacular 
Education  Society  into  Calcutta,  and  down  to  his  last 
effort  for  India,  having  put  English  in  its  right  place 
chronologically  and  educationally,  he  sought  to  have 
India  covered   with   primary  schools   worthy  of  the 
name. 

Here,  also,  the  Government  of  Lord  William  Ben- 
tinck  came  to  his  help  and  did  its  duty.  The  same 
ever  to  be  remembered  months  at  the  opening  of  1835, 
which  legislatively  brought  to  the  birth  the  Renais- 
sance in  science  and  letters,  by  the  medical  college 
and  English  language  decrees,  saw  the  first  official 
step  taken  in  the  application  of  both  to  the  varied 
vernaculars  of  India.  On  the  20th  January  "  W, 
Bentinck,"  with  whom  his   colleagues,  the   Honbles. 


2  26  LIFE    OF   DR.    DUFF.  1834. 

H.  Blunt,  A.  Ross  and  W.  Morison  **  concurred  en- 
tirely," wrote  the  minute  which  sent  Mr.  Adam,  for 
seventeen  years  a  missionary  and  then  editor  of  the 
India  Gazette,  to  visit  and  report  on  all  the  existing 
vernacular  schools  in  Bengal.  The  minute  began  with 
the  "  universally  admitted  axiom  that  education  and 
the  knowledge  to  be  imparted  by  it  can  alone  effect 
the  moral  regeneration  of  India."  At  a  time  "when 
the  establishment  of  education  upon  the  largest  and 
most  useful  basis  is  become  the  object  of  universal 
solicitude,"  the  minute  wisely  declared  it  essential  to 
ascertain  the  actual  state  of  education  as  carried  on 
for  centuries  entirely  under  native  management.  It 
deprecated  interference  with  these  before  Government 
knew  the  facts,  and  direct  inquiry  by  officirJs  as  certain 
to  excite  distrust.  Hence  the  appointment  of  Adam, 
whose  three  reports,  the  more  that  they  prove  his 
intelligent  philanthropy  and  administrative  wisdom, 
reflect  severely  on  the  stupid  apathy  of  the  Committee 
of  Education,  which  shelved  them  and  drove  him  to 
resign  in  disgust.  Ho  showed  that,  as  Duff  put  it, 
92|-  out  of  every  hundred  children  of  school-going  age 
in  Bengal  were  destitute  of  all  kinds  and  degrees  of 
instruction.  That  is,  on  the  basis  of  the  under-esti- 
mated population  of  that  time,  six  millions  of  such 
children  were  wholly  uneducated.  Yet  not  for  twenty- 
two  years  thereafter  would  Government  do  anything 
for  Bengal.  Not  till  Dalhousie  was  Governor-General 
was  anything  done  for  Upper  India  save  by  the 
missionaries.  So  the  evil  round  goes  on  under  the 
system  which  breaks  the  continuity  of  progress  in 
India — the  five  years  term  of  high  office.  A  Bentinck 
takes  his  seven  years'  ripe  experience  with  him,  to  be 
followed  by  a  reactionary  Auckland.  We  shall  not 
bring  the  illustration  down  to  our  own  day.  Mission- 
aries like  Duff  in   Eastern,  Wilson  in  Western,  and 


^t.  28.  HIS   USE    OF   THE    PRESS.  22  7 

Cald^^cU  in  Soutliera  India  alone  remain  immortal  till 
their  work  is  done  ! 

In  all  liis  work  and  at  every  stage  of  it  Duff  felt 
that  he  had  a  more  powerful  ally  and  instrument  than 
oven  Lord  William  Bentinck  as  Governor-General, — 
and  that  was  the  Press.  From  the  outsot  of  his 
career  writing  went  hand-in-hand  with  teaching  and 
public  speaking.  The  relation  of  his  new  ideas  to 
the  few  native  papers,  English  and  vernacular,  accord- 
ing as  they  opposed,  misrepresented  or  advocated 
them,  and  his  plan  of  replying  by  public  discussion  to 
the  attacks  of  their  correspondents,  we  have  seen.  The 
Serampore  missionaries  had,  before  him,  filled  the 
breach,  alike  by  their  quarterly  Friend  of  India  and  by 
Mr.  Marshman's  establishment  of  the  first  Bengalee 
newspaper.  So  that,  whereas  in  1814  there  was  only 
one  English  periodical  and  not  one  nativ^e  in  all  Ben- 
gal, and  in  1820  five  English  papers  and  still  not  one 
Bengalee  print,  in  1830  there  were  eight  native  papers. 
But  Duff  had  not  been  twelve  months  in  Calcutta 
before  he  saw  the  necessity  of  establishing  a  Magazine 
to  represent  missionary  and  philanthropic  operations 
of  all  kinds,  and  to  bring  Christian  opinion  to  bear 
upon  Government  on  the  one  hand  and  the  educated 
natives  on  the  other.  Hence  in  June,  1832,  appeared 
the  first  number  of  the  Calcutta  Christian  Ohserrcr, 
"  edited  by  Christian  ministers  of  various  denomina- 
tions." The  signature  *'  D  "  marks  the  authorship  of 
the  introductory  programme.  Besides  the  sectarian 
periodicals  then  in  Calcutta,  he  sought  "  something 
unconfined  by  any  trammels  of  party  or  of  sect — 
something  that  will  embrace  with  impartial  and  com- 
prehensive view  the  wide  domain  of  Catholic  Chris- 
tianity." He  desired  to  produce  a  periodical  which 
should  do  for  religion  in  the  East  what  James  Prinsep'a 
Journal  of  the  Asiatic  Society  accomplished  for  science 


228  LIFE   OF   DR.   DOFF.  1832 

and  tliG  Calcutta  Magazine  laboured  to  effect  for  litera- 
ture. The  six  divisions  of  the  Magazine  he  mapped 
out  as  theoretical  and  practical  theology,  Biblical  criti- 
cism and  translation,  missionary  operations,  European 
and  native  institutions  and  events,  reviews  of  books, 
intelligence  of  progress  of  all  kinds,  amid  contro- 
versy and  resistance,  for  only  eventually  may  "  the 
great  Christian  temple,  like  its  material  prototype 
of  old,  be  raised  with  noiseless  harmony  of  design 
and  execution."  The  passage  relating  to  the  second 
division  has  a  peculiar  interest : — 

"  It  is  not  necessary  that  the  majority,  or  any  very 
considerable  portion  of  the  Christian  public  should  be 
Biblical  critics  or  translators.  .  .  But,  however  true 
that  the  great  doctrines  of  revelation  are  so  potent  as 
to  have  produced  but  one  persuasion  in  the  minds  of 
the  immense  majority  of  devout  believers  in  every  age, 
it  is  not  less  true  that  even  these  have  been  repeatedly 
and  variously  impugned.  And  as  the  Scriptures  were 
written  in  ancient  and  dead  languages,  none  who  were 
ignorant  of  these  could  venture  to  elicit  and  set  in 
array  the  genuine  force  of  scriptural  evidence.  Hence 
arises  one  of  the  most  important  offices  that  devolves 
upon  the  Biblical  critic.  Again,  the  Bible  containing, 
as  it  does,  an  historical  and  prophetical  account  of  the 
most  interestijig  events  that  tran-spired  on  the  stage 
of  this  w^orld  for  4000  years,  as  vvell  as  of  the  extraor- 
dinary dispensations  of  the  Almighty,  must  naturally 
and  unavoidably  include  in  its  contents  many  '  things 
hard  to  be  understood.'  Now  these  are  the  things 
which,  surrounded  as  they  are  by  many  luminous 
points,  cost  the  pious  believer  least  trouble.  But  these 
are  the  very  things  upon  which  the  unbeliever  is  ready  to 
pounce  with  more  than  the  ravenous  speed  of  an  eagle 
upon  its  prey.  In  the  reasonableness  of  this  conduct 
he  resembles  the  man  who,  withdrawing  hie  view  from 


j£t  26.  ON    BIBLICAL  CRITICISM.  229 

the  gorgeous  productions  of  the  animal,  vegetable  and 
mineral  kingdoms,  and  tbe  combined  glory  of  tbe 
summer's  landscape,  would  point  in  a  tone  of  triumph 
to  the  meanest  reptile  or  weed,  or  to  the  dampest  and 
most  dingy  cavern,  in  proof  of  the  worse  than  gratui- 
tous assertion  that  the  external  world  contained  nouf,ht 
that  was  fair,  beauteous,  or  lovely.  Every  person  of 
common  sense  and  common  honesty  would  regard  such 
a  procedure  with  merited  contempt  and  indignation ; 
while  the  zoologist,  the  botanist  and  the  mineralogist 
would  follow  him  still  further,  and  by  evolving  the 
hidden  beauties  and  harmonies  of  what  has  been  so 
rashly  decried,  convict  him  of  the  most  presumptuous 
empiricism.  Now,  what  service  these  men  of  science 
are  enabled  to  render  in  rescuing  even  the  most  de- 
spised of  the  works  of  God  from  the  reproaches  of  the 
ignorant,  the  very  same  is  the  Biblical  critic  expected 
to  render  on  the  hard  and  dark  things — the  abstruse 
and  apparently  profitless  parts — of  the  Word  of  God. 
To  be  fully  qualified  for  a  task  so  arduous,  he  ought 
of  all  learned  men  to  be  the  most  learned." 

The  Observer  became,  under  Duff's  influence  and 
that  of  his  colleagues  during  his  absence  from  India, 
all  that  he  thus  desired ;  while  from  1835  to  1875  the 
Friend  of  Inclia^  changed  by  Mr.  J.  C.  Marshman  into 
the  powerfiil  weekly  news'paper  which  it  long  con- 
tinued to  be,  applied  the  same  Christian  principles  in 
a  more  purely  political  and  broadly  imperial  way 
to  the  elevation  of  the  whole  empire.  At  the  same 
time  we  shall  see  him  using,  for  the  highest  ends,  the 
English  daily  journals  of  Calcutta  as  he  used  the 
Anglo-Bengalee  newspapers,  and  in  his  second  term 
of  service  in  Bengal  editing  the  Galcutta  Bevieiu. 

The  coarse  licence  of  Hich/s  Gazette^  the  first  Eng- 
lish newspaper  published  in  India,  in  1780,  followed 
by  that  of  the  Bengal  Journal,  led    the   Company's 


230  LIFE    OF   DR.    DUFF.  1835. 

authorities,  in  1794,  to  deport  the  editor  of  the  latter, 
Mr.  William  Duane,  because  of  an  inflammatory  ad- 
dress to  the  army.  During  the  war  with  Tippoo  Lord 
"Wellesley  established  a  formal  censorship  of  the  press, 
which,  made  still  more  severe  in  1813,  continued  till 
1818,  when  Lord  Hastings  practically  abolished  it. 
George  Canning,  when  President  of  the  Board  of 
Control,  suppressed  a  severe  condemnation  of  this  act 
by  the  Court  of  Directors.  But  when  Mr.  John  Adam 
became  interim  Governor-General,  he  gratified  the 
bureaucratic  instinct  against  criticism  by  reviving  the 
censorship  and  deporting  Mr.  James  Silk  Buckingham, 
to  please  his  rival.  Dr.  Bryce,  who  was  at  once  senior 
Scottish  chaplain,  editor  of  the  John  Bull,  and  clerk  of 
str.tionery  !  The  weak  Lord  Amherst  put  Adam's  most 
severe  restrictions  in  force  against  Mr.  Arnot  of  the 
Calcuita  Journal,  and  warned  the  Bengal  HurJcaru. 

When  Lord  William  Bentinck's  financial  reforms 
reduced  the  military  allowances  known  as  batta,  he  was 
covered  with  abuse  which  might  have  tempted  other 
men  to  crush  the  self-seeking  critics.  But  he  knew 
and  he  loved  the  principles  of  freedom  which  his  great- 
grandfather, Hans  Bentinck,  had  helped  William  III. 
to  consolidate  in  England.  He  went  further,  declar- 
i.ng  that  the  liberty  of  4he. press  was  neces*sary  to  the 
good  government  of  the  country,  as  supplying  "  that 
lamentable  imperfection  of  control  which,  from  local 
position,  extensive  territory  and  other  causes  the  su- 
preme council  cannot  adequately  exercise."  In  1831 
he  invited  criticism  and  suggestions,  with  results  seen 
in  such  works  as  the  Honble.  F.  J.  Shore's  "  Notes  on 
Indian  Affairs,''  and  in  the  destruction  of  many  an 
abuse.  Most  happily,  however,  it  was  left  to  a  Bengal 
civilian  and  pupil  of  Wellesley  to  atone  for  the  high- 
handed folly  of  an  otherwise  estimable  administrator 
like  John  Adam.     Charles  Theophilus,  first  and  last 


JEt  2g.     BEGINNING   OF   THE    RENAISSANCE    COMPLETED.     23 1 

Lord  Metcalfe,  when  acting  as  Governor-General, 
deliberately  risked  the  permanent  appointment,  by  the 
Act  XI.  of  1835,  which  Macaulay  wrote,  repealing  all 
restrictions  on  the  press  throughout  India,  and  lea  'ing 
it,  like  all  other  institutions  and  persons,  to  the  ordi- 
nary law  of  sedition  and  libel.  Vernacular  as  well  as 
English  literature  in  India  took  a  new  start,  hardly 
checked  by  the  bureaucratic  timidity  of  Lord  Canning's 
advisers  in  1857,  and  certain  to  bo  again  freed  from 
the  less  excusable  action  of  Lord  Lytton's  councillors 
in  1877.  Thus  the  birth  of  the  Renaissance  was 
completed.  Thus  the  name  of  Metcalfe  is  linked 
with  those  of  Macaulay,  Trovelyan,  Bentinck  and 
Alexander  Duff. 

No  one  who  knows  history  and  is  accustomed  to 
weigh  in  its  balances,  sacred  and  secular,  the  causes 
and  the  tendencies  of  human  progress,  will  be  surprised 
that  we  have  thus  broadly  applied  the  term  Renaissance 
to  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  movement  started  by 
Great  Britain  in  Southern  Asia  in  1813,  vitalised  by 
Duflf  in  1830-35,  and  still  in  its  vigorous  infancy.  That 
this  movement  is  not  a  birth  only,  but  a  re-birth,  those 
will  most  readily  confess  who  know  far  better  than  the 
Brahm^anizipg  orientalists  of  tjie  East  India  Company 
the  real  splendour  of  the  early  Aryan  civilization  ;  the 
comparatively  pure  traditions  which  were  the  salt  of 
Vedic  nature-worship  ;  the  wealth  of  the  Aryan  lan- 
guages which  Hellas  itself  never  matched,  while  it 
borrowed  from  them ;  and  the  influence  of  all  three, 
through  Greek,  Latin  and  Arabic,  on  Europe  in  the 
dark  ages.  That  the  waking  up  of  the  Hindoo  mind 
is  certain  to  prove  a  Renaissance  not  only  in  the 
Italian  sense,  but  in  the  English — a  reformation  in  the 
spiritual  region,  and  a  silent  constitutional  revolution 
in  the  political  condition,  is  due  to  Alexander  Duff. 
We  have  seen  it  in  the  Christian  college  which  is  the 


232  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  i^^. 

nursery  and  in  the  first  converts  who  proved  the  seed 
of  the  Church.  We  have  seen  it  in  the  Enghsh  lan- 
guage, in  Western  science,  in  the  liberty  of  printiiifr, 
in  the  education  of  the  people  in  their  mother  tongue, 
in  the  growth  of  a  pure  vernacular  literature.  Wc 
have  yet  to  watch  the  development  in  church  and 
university,  in  literature  and  science,  in  social  freedom 
and  even  in  the  political  elevation  that  springs  from  tho 
concession,  without  a  struggle,  of  all  the  constitutional 
liberties  which  it  took  the  ruling  power  centuries  to 
consolidate  for  itself.  But  above  and  under  all  we 
shall  continue  to  find  this,  as  Europe  and  Scotland 
before  all  countries  found,  that  the  motive  power  and 
the  principle  of  growth  consist  in  the  putting  every 
Asiatic  spiritually  in  that  relation  to  God  which  tho 
Divine  Christ  has  alone  revealed  and  guarantees.  Tho 
missionary  is  thus  before  all  others.  Savonarola  has 
survived  the  Medici,  and  Luther  lives. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

]  832-1835.. 

WORK  FOB  EUnOPEANS,  EURASIANS  AND 
NATIVE  CHRISTIANS. 

St.  Anrlrow's  Kirk. — Anglican  and  Presbyterian  Sectarianism. — The 
Steeple  Controversy. — The  Battle  of  the  Gilded  Cock. — Fight 
for  a  Second  Sunday  Service. — A  Boileau  Wanted. — Sunday  Ob- 
servance in  India. — A  Boston  Socinian  and  the  Lord's  Supper. — 
Duff  longs  for  Friendly  Sympathy. — The  Senior  Chaplain  of 
Madras. — Daniel  Wilson  and  Lord  William  Bentinck. — Rise  of 
the  Eurasian  Community. — First  Charity  Schools. — Origin  of  the 
Doveton  Colleges. — The  Civil  and  Religious  Rights  of  Converts 
from  Hindooism  and  Muhammadanism.  —  The  first  Writ  of 
Habeas  Corpus  in  India.: — Dr.  H.  H.  Wilson  Apologises  to  the 
Missionaries, —  Case  of  Brijonath  Ghose. — Duff  docs  the  Bishop 
of  Calcutta's  work. — Castigates  Mr.  Longueville  Clark. — His 
Power  of  Moral  Suasion. — Bengal  Asiatic  and  Agricultural  Socie- 
ties.— Mr,  and  Mrs.  Duff  decline  to  attend  the  Governor-Generara 
Ball.— Lord  William  Bentinck's  Public  Eulogy  of  Duff.— The 
School  becomes  an  Arts  and  Divinity  College. — Reminiscences  of 
Duff  in  1834  by  a  Bengalee  Schoolboy. — The  Bible  and  Tract 
Societies. — The  Great  Cyclone  of  May,  1833. — The  panic-stricken 
Tiger.— Fever  after  Flood.— Duff's  First  Attack.— Visit  of  A.  N. 
Groves  from  Baghdad. — A  Day  in  the  College. — Duft  again 
stricken  down  by  Dysentery.  —  Carried  on  board  the  John 
M'Lellan  bound  for  Greenock, — The  Precious  Seed  Germinating. 

So  early  as  the  beginning  of  tlie  year  1832,  while  Mr. 
Duff  was  steering  his  apparently  frail  boat  in  the  very 
trough  of  the  sea  of  Hindoo  society,  with  no  assistance 
and  little  sympathy  from  his  own  countrymen,  he  was 
called  to  minister  in  St.  Andrew's  kirk  to  the  Scottish 
residents,  and  to  help  the  Eurasians  and  the  native 
Christians  in  their  earnest  struggles  after  toleration 
for  themselves  in  the  eye  of  the  law  and  a  good  edu- 
cation for  their  children.  Thus  early  he  began  the 
afterwards  lifelong  labours  which  ended  in  the  estab- 


234  I-TFE    OF   DR.    DUFF.  183a. 

lisbraent  of  tlio  Anglo-lDdian  Christian  Union,  and  in 
the  creation  of  the  Dovcton  Colleges  of  Calcutta  and 
Madras. 

St.  Andrew's  kirk — in  1813  the  fruit,  like  its  fellows 
in  Bombay  and  Madras,  of  much  talking  in  obscure 
Scottish  presbyteries,  and  much  petitioning  of  Par- 
liament  by  synods  and  general  assemblies  since  1793 — 
had  never  justified  its  existence.  How  Dr.  Bryce,  its 
first  chaplain,  went  out  to  Calcutta  in  the  same  ship 
with  Bishop  Middleton  we  have  told.  A  bishop  must 
have  his  cathedral;  so  St.  John's  church,  consecrated 
by  the  ministrations  of  Claudius  Buchanan  and  Henry 
Martyn,  to  which  Warren  Hastings,  his  council  and 
all  the  "  factors  "  in  the  settlement  used  to  walk  to 
morning  service,  was  enlarged  and  dubbed  by  the 
necessary  name,  until  Bishop  Wilson  built  St.  Paul's 
Cathedral.  It  was  still  more  requisite  that  the  Scot- 
tish chaplain  should  have  a  church,  and  the  Govern- 
ment selected  as  its  site  the  spot  on  which  Lord  Clive's 
old  court-house  had  stood,  whence  the  name  still  given 
to  the  finest  street  in  all  t!ie  East.  The  Presbyterian 
had  won  the  first  move  iii  the  evil  game  of  sectarian- 
ism which  he  and  the  Anglican  bishop  introduced  into 
India.  But,  viewing  the  national  Church  of  Scotland 
as  a  dissenting  body,  the  bishop  would  not  allow 
Government  to  give  it  a  church  with  a  steeple.  The 
Scottish  blood  of  more  than  half  Calcutta  was  roused 
at  this,  for  as  to  origin  the  Scotsmen  were  in  the 
majority.  1  aey  had  the  secret  sympathy  of  the  evan- 
gelical missionaries  of  the  Church  Missionary  Society, 
whom  Dr.  Middleton  liked  no  more  than  the  episcopal 
and  youthful  representative  of  the  same  views  in  the 
see  of  Colombo  now  does.  Long  and  loud  raged  the 
battle  of  the  steeple.  It  occupied  secretaries  and 
honourable  members  of  Council  and  the  Governor- 
General  week  after  week,  till  the  literature  of  the 


JEt  26.    ANGLICAN   AND    PRESBYTEUIAN    SECrAKIANISM.        235 

subject  plunged  the  predecessors  of  future  Dalhousies, 
Caniiiugs  and  Lawrences  in  despair.  The  men  who 
were  equal  to  successful  expeditious  to  Java,  Mauritius 
and  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  ;  who  had  conducted  to  a 
happy  issue  Burman  and  Goorklia  wars,  Maratha  and 
Piutlaree  campaigns,  confessed  tliemselves  l)eaten  by  the 
steeple  controversy.  Lord  Hastings,  liiinself  a  Scots- 
man, directed  all  the  papers  to  bo  hurled  at  the  heads 
of  the  directors  who  had  sent  out  the  ecclesiastical 
combatants.  Equally  baffled,  the  directors  appealed 
to  the  Crown  and  its  law  officers,  not  sorry  that  tho 
authority  which  had  forced  the  Church  establishment 
upon  them  should  have  a  little  more  trouble.  Tho 
decision  was  that,  as  equal  in  their  own  sphere  to  the 
Episcopalians,  tho  Presbyterians  should  have  their 
steeple,  although  the  Government  were  paying  a  thou- 
sand pounds  as  ground  rent  for  the  site.  Years  had 
passed  in  the  fight,  but  the  national  zeal  had  not 
waxed  cold.  There  are  steeples  and  steeples.  Of 
what  height  was  St.  Andrew's  to  be  ?  Tho  kirk  itself 
was  a  noble  structure,  and  the  steeple  must  correspond 
with  it  architecturally.  To  close  tho  matter,  the 
Scottish  residents,  in  public  meeting  assembled,  sub- 
scribed eighty  thousand  rupees  (£8,000)  to  add  to  tho 
spire  allowed  by  Government,  so  as  to  raise  it  to  a 
point  twenty  feet  higher  than  that  of  the  cathedral, 
and  they  surmounted  the  whole  by  a  cock  to  symbolise 
their  crowing  over  the  bishop.  Against  this  Dr. 
Middleton  renewed  the  fight,  and  the  cock,  like  the 
steeple,  occupied  the  discussions  of  the  Governor- 
General  in  Council  and  then  of  the  Court  of  Directors. 
The  decision  was  worthy  of  the  most  subtle  of  the 
ecclesiastical  schoolmen,  and  of  the  satire  of  Boileau's 
"  Lutrin."  It  must  have  been  meant,  by  the  James 
Mills,  Charles  Lambs  or  Thomas  Love  Peacocks  who 
in  those  days  draughted  the  despatches,  as  fine  irony. 


236  LIFl!)   OF   Dtt.    DUFF.  1 83 2. 

When,  it  was  ruled,  the  quinquennial  repairs  of  the 
building  come  round,  the  public  works  authorities  are 
not  to  gild  the  cock  anew !  The  judgment  was  a 
new  triumph,  for  the  patriotic  Scotsmen  of  Calcutta, 
for  long  thereafter,  used  to  raise  some  five  hundred 
rupees  privately  to  regild  the  boastful  symbol. 

But  it  was  one  thing  to  revel  in  such  warfare,  and 
quite  another  to  fill  the  kirk  inside,  with  its  spacious 
aisles  and  vast  galleries,  seated  with  eight  hundred 
chairs,  over  which  swung  cooling  punkahs  for  as 
many  occupants.  Dr.  Bryce  was  more  at  homo  as 
editor  of  the  John  Bull  and  cler'k  in  the  stationery 
office.  In  due  time  ho  received  as  colleague  a  man  of 
a  very  different  stamp,  tho  Dr.  Brown  whose  guest 
Duff  became  on  first  lauding  in  India.  But  this  gave 
rise  to  a  new  squabble.  Scandalised  that  there  should 
bo  only  one  service  on  Sunday,  Dr.  Brown  proposed 
to  hold  public  worship  in  the  evening  also.  Again  the 
dispute  travelled  up  through  the  usual  machinery  of 
secretaries,  council  and  directors,  when  the  decision 
came  that  all  chaplains  were  military  servants,  but  tho 
Government  would  not  concern  itself  with  their  inter- 
nal ecclesiastical  arrangements.  Dr.  Brown  might 
act  as  he  pleased.  But  he  met  with  an  unexpected 
obstacle  at  the  first  evening  service.  The  precentor 
was  engaged  to  raise  the  tune  at  only  one  weekly 
service,  and  did  not  appear.  The  good  minister  had 
a  voice  fortunately  quite  equal  to  the  occasion,  and 
Dr.  Bryce  surrendered.  But  in  the  spring  of  1830 
Dr.  Brown  had  a  fall  from  his  horse,  which  sent  him  on 
sick  leave  to  the  Straits  of  Malacca,  where  ho  died, 
and  the  old  state  of  things  was  re-established. 

The  three  acts  in  the  ecclesiastical  drama  of  steeple, 
cock,  and  second  service,  recall  the  mock-heroics  on 
the  fight  of  the  treasurer-bishop  and  the  chanter  con- 
cerning the  reading-desk  of  Notre  Dame : — 


^t   36.     UESULT   OF   TUB    ECCLESIASTICAL    SliUABDLES.         237 

"  Jc  clianto  lo3  cotnbata,  ot  co  Pri'Iat  terrible, 
Qui  par  sos  longs  travaux,  efc  sa  force  inviiiciblo, 
Uans  uiio  illustre  Eglisc?  exor^'atit  son  grand  coour 
Fit  plac'jr  in  la  fin  un  Lutrin  daus  lo  cbojur. 

Quelle  furcur,  dit-il,  quel  avouglo  caprice ! 
Quand  lo  diucr  est  prct,  vous  ap[)L'llo  i\  I'office  ? 
De  votro  digniio  soutcnoz  micux  Tuclat, 
Est-ce  pour  travaillcr  que  vous  ctcs  prolat  ?  " 

As  Boileau  closes  the  strife  by  bringing  m  Piety, 
Faith  and  Grace,  who  awaken  Aristus  to  restore  peace, 
so  the  missionary  brings  life  back  to  St.  Andrew's. 

This  was  the  kirk  and  the  kirk-session  under 
which  Duff  might  have  been  bound  to  work,  had  not 
the  young  evangelist  been  given  the  foresight  and  the 
grace  to  stipulate  that  he  should  go  out  to  found  the 
mission  in  India  fettered  by  no  man  there.  The 
Government  was  distracted  and  disgusted,  iihe  educated 
natives  were  scandalised  by  this  continued  exhibition 
of  Christianity,  and  the  Scots,  who  had  been  so  proud 
of  their  national  kirk,  ceased  to  enter  it.  Some  per- 
manently joined  the  Church  of  England,  especially 
when  the  loving  and  cultured  lleginald  llcber  became 
the  second  Metropolitan  of  India,  and  others  found 
what  they  desired  among  the  Congregationalists  or 
Baptists.  The  majority  of  the  residents,  Scottish  and 
English,  made  the  Sabbath  a  time  of  pleasuring,  when 
they  could  absent  themselves  from  their  offices,  which 
were  open  and  busy  every  day.  Boating  excursions, 
picnic  parties  to  Barrackpore  and  the  French  and 
Dutch  settlements  up  the  river,  and  pig-sticking  on 
the  edge  of  the  Soonderbun  jungles  to  the  south  of 
the  city,  were  the  result  of  the  spiritual  energies  of 
Middleton  and  Bryce. 

In  this  state  of  things  Dr.  Bryce  resolved  to  take 
furlough  home.     Believing  that  he  could  help  the  new 


238  LIFE   OF   DU.    DUFF.  1832. 

mission  by  reporting  its  success,  in  which  he  had 
always  sympathised,  ho  quietly  proposed  to  throw  on 
the  missionary  the  whole  duty  of  preaching  in  St. 
Andrew's  pulpit  and  taking  pastoral  oversight  of  the 
large  Scottish  community  Thus  modestly  and  in 
this  brotherly  spirit  did  Duff  reply  to  the  first  sug- 
gestion on  the  30th  November,  1831: — "I  should 
have  rejoiced  to  have  been  able  to  have  rendered 
more  frequent  assistance  on  Sunday ;  but  I  really 
find  every  moment  so  engrossed,  and  the  personal 
fatigue  often  so  harassing  from  the  miscellaneous 
calls  on  my  daily  avocations,  tliat  I  have  little  time 
and  generally  still  less  strength  to  spare  for  pulpit 
duties.  In  the  event,  however,  of  your  twelvemonth's 
trip  being  resolved  upon,  I  would  be  ready  to  do  my 
best,  or  to  enter  into  the  adoption  of  any  measure 
which  might  secure  regular  service  for  the  good  folks 
of  St.  Andrew's.  This,  however,  is  a  subject  for 
further  consideration."  The  next  information  which 
Duff  received  was  in  the  form  of  a  letter,  sent  back 
by  the  pilot  from  the  Sandheads,  as  the  mouth  of  the 
Hooghly  is  called,  in  which  Dr.  Bryce  announced  his 
sudden  departure  with  his  invalid  wife.  With  no 
stock  of  prepared  sermons  (for  all  his  manuscripts  had 
gone  down  at  Dassen  Island),  with  his  daily  college 
duties,  and  his  weekly  evening  lectures,  tiie  sudden 
call  made  even  Alexander  Duff  hesitate.  But  having 
reason  to  believe  that  if  the  kirk  were  once  shut 
Government  would  put  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
opening  it  again,  bewailing  the  condition  of  his 
own  countrymen  as  sheep  without  a  shepherd,  and 
meeting  at  every  turn  the  evil  effect  of  their  lives 
on  the  observant  natives,  he  threw  himself  into  the 
breach. 

Never   before — not   whci.    Kiernander  was   in   the 
full  flush  of  that  activity  which  attracted   Clive,  and 


^t.  26.  PREACHER  AND  PASTOR.  239 

his  own  Cambuslaug  compatriot,  Claudius  Bucliarian, 
was  reproving  even  a  good  Governor-General  like 
Cornwallis — liad  Calcutta  seen  such  a  preacher  and 
pastor.  He  went  into  the  pulpit  the  first  Sunday  to 
find  a  score  of  worshippers  lost  amid  the  eight  hun- 
dred chairs.  The  sight  he  described  as  that  of  "a 
void  and  huge  wilderness."  The  session  registers  gave 
him  the  names  of  not  a  few  who  had  continued  to 
preserve  their  latent  rights  by  paying  seat-rents,  and 
with  these  he  determined  to  begin.  The  easy  theory 
had  been  that  the  Scotsman  in  India  is  so  different 
a  being  from  what  he  is  at  home,  that  he  regarded 
his  minister's  visit  as  intrusive.  The  new  pastor  soon 
put  that  to  the  test.  He  found  his  purely  pastoral 
calls  welcomed.  The  Sunday  solitude  of  the  kirk 
gradually  became  a  respectable  crowd.  The  ministra- 
tions during  nearly  all  1832  resulted  in  the  creation 
of  the  good  congregation  which  Dr.  Charles,  the  new 
chaplain,  found  on  his  arrival.  The  results  on  the 
morals  and  the  higher  life  of  European  society  became 
marked.  Bishop  Turner,  who  followed  Dr.  James,  the 
short-lived  successor  of  Heber,  had  been  grievously 
vexed  by  the  utter  absence  of  all  signs  of  a  day  of 
rest,  Christian  or  national,  when  he  landed.  Govern- 
ment as  well  mercantile  offices  were  open  daily  with- 
out intermission,  as  they  had  been  smce  the  first 
settlement  of  the  British  in  India.  The  bishop's 
attempt  to  reform  society  by  privately  asking  the  less 
godless  to  sign  a  voluntary  pledge  to  abstain  from 
business  and  from  compelling  the  natives  to  attend 
office  on  the  Lord's- day,  brought  down  on  him  the 
fiercest  bigotry  and  intolerance.  Duff,  a  little  later, 
found  his  opportunity  just  before  Daniel  Wilson  landed 
as  the  next  bishop. 

A  prosperous  young  Scottish  merchant  asked  the 
officiating  minister  of  St.  Andrew's  to  baptize  his  first- 


240  LIFE   OP   DR.    DUFF.  1832. 

born.  The  father  was  met  by  a  kindly  exposition  of 
Presbyterian  discipline,  and  was  recommended  to 
delay  nntil  he  liimself  should,  by  attending  church  at 
least,  and  then  by  observing  family  worship,  show 
some  honest  regard  for  the  Christianity  he  professed 
ill  name  only.  Resentment,  under  Duff's  persuasive 
kindliness,  soon  gave  way  to  the  confession  that  he 
was  junior  partner  of  a  firm  which  employed  five 
hundred  natives,  that  his  senior  was  in  England,  that 
he  had  to  supervise  the  men  on  Sunday  as  on  other 
days  and  c  uld  not  possibly  attend  church.  The 
minister's  further  intercourse  with  him  and  his  wife 
led  him  to  try  the  experiment  of  shutting  the  office 
for  one  day  in  seven.  Summoning  his  operatives  on 
the  Saturday,  he  explained  that  for  the  next  month 
he  would  not  require  their  attendance  on  Sunday,  but 
would  not  on  that  account  lower  their  wages.  If  he 
found  that  the  four  or  five  holidays  led  them  to  work 
more  zealously,  he  would  be  able  to  make  the  arrange- 
ment permanent.  They  could  not  believe  the  state- 
ment at  first,  and  it  soon  formed  the  talk  of  the 
neighbourhood  and  of  the  surrounding  villages  to 
which  the}  belonged.  It  was  found  that  not  one  was 
absent  on  Monday  morning,  and  that  that  month's 
tale  of  work  exceeded  the  out-turn  of  each  of  its  pre- 
decessors, while  a  new  feeling  of  cheerful  loyalty  and 
confidence  had  been  born  between  the  employed  and 
their  employer.  The  change,  and  the  baptism  which 
followed,  became  the  ^leginning  of  a  new  life  to  more 
than  to  this  family.  It  was  long  till  society  became 
outwardly  transformed.  But  that  was  the  dawn  of 
the  social  as  well  as  spiritual  improvement  which 
has  made  the  Christian  day  of  rest,  observed  by 
Government  order  and  European  opinion,  a  boon  and 
a  teacher  to  the  thousands  of  toiling  Hindoos  and 
others  wlio  rejoice  in  its  physical  advantages,  and  arc 


JEL  26.  WORK  AMONG   AMERICANS.  24 1 

sometimes  led  by  it  to  higher  thoughts,  though,  un- 
doubtedly, the  viciously  inclined  abuse  the  rest  as 
all  good  gifts  may  be  abused.  The  English  Sab- 
bath is  not  the  least  of  the  blessings  conferred  by 
the  British  Government  on  India,  and,  as  usual,  the 
missionaries  pointed  the  way. 

Not  till  he  had  been  for  six  months  thus  building 
up  the  congregation  did  Mr.  Duff  announce  the  in- 
tended communion  of  the  Lord's  Supper.  A  young 
American  waited  upon  him  next  day  to  declare  that, 
being  from  Boston,  he  had  been  brought  up  a  Uni- 
tarian, but  had  failed  to  find  any  real  comfort  in  his 
religion.  Expecting  an  impulse  to  a  higher  emotional 
life  at  least  from  the  celebration  of  the  sacrament 
after  the  simple  Scottish  form,  he  sought  permission 
to  sit  down  at  the  table  with  friends  who  were  already 
members  of  the  Kirk.  Having  expounded  the  truo 
nature  of  the  divinity  of  Jesus  Christ,  very  much  as  he 
had  done  to  inquirers  like  Krishna  ]\Iohun  Banerjca, 
and  pointed  to  the  only  source  of  all  the  privilege  of 
His  memorial  sacrifice,  Mr.  Duff  recommended  fuj'thcr 
study  of  Scripture.  The  youth  consented,  and  at  the 
same  time  courteously  offered  his  counsellor  the  books 
of  Dr.  Channing,  which  were  at  that  time  new  to 
England  and  India.  As  the  American,  witli  the 
assistance  of  no  little  intercourse  with  Duff,  was 
gradually  being  led  upwards  from  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
to  the  ImmanuelWho  was  wounded  for  our  transsfres- 
sions,  a  wasting  sickness  seized  him,  and  he  was  sent 
to  sea  to  the  health-giving  breezes  at  the  Sandheads. 
In  the  pilot-brig  he  died,  but  not  before  the  full  glory 
Oi  the  Incarnation  entered  liis  soul,  and  he  charged 
the  captain,  as  he  died,  to  tell  Mr.  Duff  that  he  had 
found  Jesus  to  be  his  all-sufTicient  because  Divine 
Saviour.  Such  cases  may  bo  taken  as  typical  of 
the  work  done  among  his  own  people  in   that  year 

^  B 


242  LIFE   OF   BR.    DUrr.  1830. 

memorable  to  many.  Thus,  as  ever  after,  there  worked 
side  by  side  in  Duff's  career  the  evangelising  of  the 
Hindoo  and  the  recalling  by  the  evangel  of  many  who 
had  forgotten  their  baptismal,  their  national,  their 
personal  birthright  in  Christ. 

In  all  this  the  impulsive  but  ever  loving  heart  of 
Alexander  Duff  had  continued  to  pant  for  the  sym- 
pathy of  such  a  friend  as  Urquhart,  whom  he  had  lost 
all  too  soon  in  his  student  days.  Dr.  Brown  had  been 
taken  away,  and  in  the  great-hearted  Swiss  Lacroix, 
over  whose  grave  he  long  after  poured  out  a  eulogy 
wortliy  of  David  and  Jonathan,  he  found  some  of  the 
affection  that  strong  men  cherish.  Many,  who  knew 
little  of  the  far  higher  work  he  was  doing  for  all  time, 
had  desired  to  see  him  Dr.  Brown's  successor,  and  to 
this  he  alludes  in  these  letters  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Laurie, 
the  Madras  chaplain,  by  wliom  he  had  been  hospitably 
received  on  his  way  to  Calcutta.  The  fervour  of  his 
friendly  longing  bursts  forth,  as  it  ever  did  to  those  ho 
valued.  Here,  too,  we  see  his  interest  in  the  soldiers, 
for  whom  few  then  cared  : — 

"  College  Square,  Calcutta,  1st  Nov.,  1830. 
**  My  Deae  Friend, — Bold  indeed  must  that  heart 
be,  and  cheerless  that  soul,  that  would  not  experience, 
.1  will  not  say  pleasure  simply,  but  strong  emotions 
of  holy  love  and  ardour  on  the  jjerusal  of  your  truly 
apostolic  letter.  I  have  not  for  a  long  time  received 
anything  so  refreshing  and  to  myself  so  humbling. 
With  the  sincerity  of  conviction  I  felt  that  you  treated 
me  and  mine  with  more  than  a  brother's  kindness,  and 
manifested  towards  me  more  than  the  natural  tokens 
of  a  brother's  love,  and  I  appeared  to  feel  that  it  was 
not  possible  to  regard  any  other  brother  in  Christ 
with  a  more  tender  affection.  But  since  the  receipt 
of  your  last  letter  you  seem  as  if  more  endeared  than 


^t.  24.  WORK   AMONG    SOLDIERS.  243 

ever  to  my  soul.  Such  warmth,  such  earnest  anxiety, 
such  bowels  of  compassion,  such  yearnings  of  a  father 
for  the  souls  of  his  people  !  Truly  was  I  cheered  and 
aroused,  as  with  a  message  from  heaven,  and  humbled 
to  the  very  dust.  Oh,  that  I  had  one  half  the  zeal  and 
anxious  longing  for  the  redemption  of  lost  souls  and 
the  continued  welfare  of  such  as  appear  to  be  within 
the  fold  of  Christ !  Oh  pray  with  me,  and  for  me, 
that  all  the  cold  and  frozen  apathy  of  nature  may 
disappear  before  the  genial  influences  of  a  heavenly 
fire  ! 

"It  need  scarcely  be  added,  that  immediately  after 
receiving  your  letter  the  necessary  inquiries  were 
made  respecting  the  regiment  in  behalf  of  which  you 
expressed  such  d'3ep  and  unfeigned  interest.  The 
information  obtained  was  that  one  half  of  the  resji- 
ment  had  reached  Calcutta,  and  proceeded  straight  on 
to  Chin  surah,  thirty  miles  to  the  north  ;  that  Chinsurah 
itself  was  only  to  be  a  temporary  station,  as  the  inten- 
tion was  tliat  they  should  proceed  without  delay  to  the 
upper  provinces.  By  this  arrangement  I  am  not  only 
deprived  of  the  opportunity  of  being  useful  to  them, 
but  also  precluded  from  the  possibility  of  seeing  them 
at  all.  I  trust,  however,  that  they  will  not  be  for- 
saken, that  He  who  hath  begun  a  good  work  will 
accomplish  it  unto  the  end.  While  at  Chinsurah  they 
may  derive  benefit  from  the  instructions  of  Mr.  Pear- 
son, missionary  of  the  London  Society.  On  Monday 
last  week  he  came  down  to  Calcutta  ou  business :  to 
him  I  represented  the  case  as  strongly  as  possible. 
He  felt  for  them,  and  stated  that  on  Sunday,  24th 
October,  about  forty  assembled  and  listened  atten- 
tively to  his  address ;  and  that  his  efforts  should  not 
be  spared  so  far  as  his  other  duties  would  admit  of 
it.  Hence  you  perceive  that  the  Lord  has  dealt  very 
graciously  with  them ;  and  our  prayers  should  be  that 


244  l^IFE   OF   DE.    DUFF.  1830. 

at  every  station  some  man  of  God  may  be  raised  up 
to  comfort  and  cheer  this  little  band  in  the  perilous 
voyage  to  eternity,  warn  tliem  of  danger,  strengthen 
them  for  the  toil  of  a  busy  warfare,  and  direct  them 
in  safety  to  the  blissful  haven  of  eternal  rest. 

"  It  is  interesting  to  think  that  after  reaching  Cal- 
cutta the  idea  suggested  in  your  letter,  of  employing 
pious  and  respectably  educated  soldiers  as  teachers, 
occurred  so  forcibly  to  my  mind  that  the  first  attempt 
to  secure  teachers  was  directed  to  that  quarter ;  and 
it  was  on'  after  the  attempt  proved  fruitless  that 
my  attention  was  particularly  directed  towards  'the 
country-born,'  as  they  are  commonly  called.  Among 
these,  after  mucli  trouble,  anxiety  and  waste  of 
time,  I  succeeded  in  securing  two  or  three  young 
men  of  apparent  piety  and  steady  consistency  of 
conduct.  For  this  I  feel  thankful  to  God,  and  trust 
that  in  future,  with  God's  blessing,  the  requisite 
supply  of  subordinate  teachers  may  be  had  from  this 
class. 

"  I  would  now  be  inclined  to  give  you  some  account 
of  all  my  proceedings  for  the  last  five  busy  husij 
months,  but  know  not  where  to  begin  or  how  to 
end,  so  multifarious  and  closely  crowded  are  the 
materials  accumulated.  A  volume,  not  a  few  sheets, 
vrould  be  required.  This  note,  however,  is  but  the 
preliminary  notice,  as  it  were,  of  what  I  trust  will  be 
a  frequent  and  delightful  correspondence.  In  order 
to  meet  your  wishes,  when  you  write  be  so  kind  as  to 
state,  in  the  form  of  question,  those  subjects  on  which 
you  would  desire  to  be  informed,  and  I  in  return  will 
take  the  same  liberty  with  you.  I  have  now  traversed 
every  part  of  Calcutta  and  its  vicinity  ;  have  resolved, 
after  much  anxious  inquiry,  to  make  Calcutta  my  head- 
quarters ;  have  found  the  impossibility  of  instituting, 
in   the  first  instance,  a  central  seminary  of  the  de- 


/gi,   24.  HE    DESCRIBES    HIS    WORK.  245 

scription  proposed  by  tlie  Assembly's  committee ;  liave 
found,  after  mucli  investio^ation,  that,  in  the  present 
state  of  things  in  Calcutta,  it  is  more  advisable  for  the 
Assembly's  ultimate  purpose  to  maintain  Englisli  in 
preference  to  Bengalee  schools ;  have  proved,  by  a 
most  successful  experiment  on  a  large  scale,  that,  with 
proper  management,  elementary  Englisli  education, 
including  tlie  reading  of  the  Scriptures  by  the  most 
advanced  classes,  may  be  carried  on  to  almost  any 
extent ;  and  that,  in  the  -course  of  a  ver^''  few  years 
indeed,  a  central  institution  for  a  higher  education  will 
be  absolutely  demanded.  I  cannot  enter  into  detail. 
In  the  school  now  formed  in  the  building  formerly 
occupied  as  a  Hindoo  college,  on  the  Chitpore  road, 
there  are  present  every  day,  after  making  the  neces- 
sary allowance  for  temporary  engagements  and  sick- 
ness, not  less  than  250  from  the  age  of  six  to  twenty- 
four,  and  of  all  classes  from  the  Brahman  downwards. 
The  labours  of  every  day  are  commenced  with  prayer 
— generally  the  Lord's  Prayer,  as  that  has  been  fully 
explained;  about  ninety  read  a  portion  of  the  New 
Testament  in  English,  and  listen  to  any  explanations 
or  remarks.  So  far  well.  The  Lord  alone  can  give 
the  effectual  blessing.  I  have  been  and  still  am  in  a 
whirling  vortex  of  employment.  Excuse  therefore  my 
haste.  Pray  write  me  without  delay.  Remember  me 
in  kindness  to  those  dear  friends  who  share  in  our 
Christian  affection  —  Messrs.  Dalmahoy,  Bannister, 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wardrope,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Webster,  Mr. 
Smith  and  Mr.  Ridsdale.  I  have  no  recollection  of 
one  of  the  name  of  Rodgers  at  St.  Andrews.  I  pray 
fervently  with  my  whole  heart  that  he  may  prove  a 
faithful,  zealous  and  devoted  fellow- worker  with  you 
in  the  ministry.  Oh,  who  can  estimate  the  blessing 
of  a  messenger  of  God,  having  the  same  mind  and 
bearing  the   shame  with  and  for  Christ !     Who  can 


246  LIFE   OV   DE.    DUFF.  183 1. 

estimate  the  curse  of  an  emissary  of  Satan,  wearing 
the  outward  garb  and  glorying  only  in  the  riches  of 
Christ's  visible  Church  !  The  last  accounts  from  Dr. 
Brown  are  ciio(3i'less ;  I  fear  he  is  no  more;  if  so, 
happy,  happy,  happy  he  1" 

''29th  Deccmher,  1831. 

**  Things  here  are  in  a  very  complicntod  state,  and 
very  difficult  to  unravel  in  all  that  conci  1  us  the  vitals 
of  religion,  whether  among  Europeans  or  natives.  I 
think  it  not  unlikely  that  when  a  decided  movement 
shall  take  place  it  will  be  simultaneous  among 
all  classes,  and  probably  sudden  in  its  appearance. 
Be  this  as  it  may,  the  elements  of  change  are  at 
present  accumulating  rather  than  any  great  or  deci- 
sive change  developed.  Much  is  visible  to  call  forth 
gratitude  to  God,  but  nothing,  nothing  to  equal  the 
expectations  raised  at  home  or  justify  the  gloryings 
of  many. 

"  I  am  still  little  else  than  an  explorer  of  the  field, 
though  the  success  of  the  largo  English  school  estab- 
lished is  pleasing,  and  with  the  Divine  blessing  it  may 
become  one  of  the  nurseries  of  a  higher  and  better 
institution.  Since  the  departure  and  death  of  our 
mutually  much  esteemed  friend.  Dr.  Brown,  I  am 
left  absolutely  alone.  Many,  many  are  exceedingly 
kind  and  friendly,  but  there  is  not  one  who  can  feel 
and  co-operate  with  me  as  a  brother.  Often  I  think  of 
Madras  and  of  the  kind  friends  there,  and  especially 
of  you,  my  brother.  More  I  cannot  say — I  always 
fear  giving  vent  to  my  feelings,  lest  there  might  escape 
a  word  that  indicated  repining  or  dissatisfaction  with 
the  allotments  of  the  Almighty. 

"My  spare  time — and  it  has  hitherto  been  vcnj 
limited — is  devoted  to  the  languages.  Here,  with 
God's  blessing,  I  experience  little  difficulty — the  want 


jEt,  25.  ARRIVAL   OF  DANIEL   WILSON.  247 

of  time  is  my  grand  enemy.  I  have  had  no  tidings 
from  home  of  late,  though  I  daily  expect  to  hear  some- 
thing about  fellow-labourers  on  their  way  or  arriving. 
Education  can  bo  pursued  to  almost  any  extent  in 
Calcutta,  with  proper  agents  and  adequate  funds.  I 
intend  very  soon  to  transmit  homo  a  report  or 
memorial  on  the  practicability  and  necessity  of  found- 
ins:  an  institution  for  the  more  advanced  branches  of 
a  literary,  scientific  and  Christian  course  of  instruction, 
to  which  the  labours  of  European  teachers  shall  be 
chiefly  confined,  while  the  branch  schools  may  always 
be  conducted  by  less  qualified  individuals  to  be  found 
already  in  the  country,  and  the  direct  preaching  of 
the  gospel  shall  be  carried  on  to  the  utmost  practicable 
extent. 

"  Has  your  colleague  arrived  ?  and  does  he  profess 
a  kindred  spirit  ?  Many  here  have  ■  wished  to  per- 
suade me  to  apply,  or  allow  application  to  be  made, 
that  I  might  succeed  Dr.  Brown,  but  I  have  per- 
emptorily declined,  on  the  ground  that  my  motives 
might  be  misrepresented  and  misconstrued — that  the 
act  might  be  viewed  as  an  inglorious  abandonment 
of  the  cause  which  I  have  engaged  to  promote,  and 
that  in  this  way  the  cause  itself,  so  far  as  its  present 
connection  with  the  Church  or  Scotland  is  concerned, 
might  languish  and  suffer.  But  from  my  soul  I 
pray,  and  I  am  sure  you  will  join  me  in  this  prayer, 
that  a  man  of  Grod  may  appear  to  heal  the  breaches 
that  have  been  opened  in  our  Zion. 

"  Have  you  written  Dr.  Inglis  ?  or  found  it  prudent 
to  attempt  making  any  collection  for  the  General 
Assembly's  fund  ?     Yours  very  truly, 

"Alexander  Duff.'* 

Daniel  Wilson's  arrival  in  1832,  as  fifth  Bishop  of 
Calcutta,    brought    together  two   men  of    the   same 


248  LIFE    OF   DR.    DUFF.  1832. 

evangelical  spirit  though  separated  by  ecclesiastical 
forms.  "  A  visit  to  Dr.  Carey  at  Serampore," 
writes  the  bishop's  biographer,  "  elicited  many  in- 
teresting reminiscences  of  the  early  Christianity  of 
India.  A  friendly  conversation  with  Dr.  Duff  fur- 
nished important  information  on  the  subject  of  native 
education."  Daniel  Wilson's  episcopate  was  to  last 
nearly  as  long  as  Duff's  apostleship  in  India.  Al- 
though the  most  **  churchy  "  of  evangelicals  the  bishop 
wrote  of  Lord  W.  Bentinck,  as  he  might  have  done  of 
Duff,  "  Lord  AVilliam  is  rather  more  of  a  Whig  and 
less  of  a  churchman  than  I  could  desire,  but  incom- 
parably better  than  the  highest  churchman  if  without 
piety,  vigour  and  activity.  Lord  William  reverences 
religion  and  its  sincere  professors  and  ministers, 
but  he  has  prejudices  against  bishops."  Like  Duff, 
the  Governor-Greneral  had  told  the  new  bishop,  who 
applied  to  him  in  vain  to  have  his  sacerdotal  claims 
over  the  chaplains  legally  acknowledged,  "  Christianity 
is  my  object."  The  bishop  rejoined  with  characteristic 
prejudice  :  "  With  a  feeble  people  like  the  Hindoos 
there  must  be  creeds,  a  liturgy  and  an  established 
ministry."  Yet  Duff  had  won  his  first  four  converts 
there,  and  the  revolution  he  had  begun  was  so  fer- 
menting that  the  bishop  wrote  in  March,  1833:  *' A 
most  interesting  moment  is  dawning  on  India.  The 
native  mind  is  at  work.  A  beginning  of  things  is 
already  made." 

Europeans  and  Americans  constituted  only  one-half 
of  the  professing  Christian  or  born  Christian  commu- 
nity in  India.  Before  the  influence  of  missionaries 
and  chnplains,  the  overland  route  and  liberal  furlough 
rules  combined  to  make  the  married  life  of  white 
settlers  in  India  all  that  the  wife  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence 
longed  for  it  to  be,  in  the  Calcutta  Revmo,  the  Eura- 
sians   (Europe-Asia)   or    East    Indians    had    become 


JEt.  26.  THE  EURASIANS  AND  THE  DOVETON  COLLEGES.    249 

strong  in  numbers,  tlio  offspring  of  Englisli  fathers 
and  native  mothers.  In  1833  Dufl'  developed  into  a 
system  his  hibours  for  tliem. 

Leaving  out  the  half-caste  children  of  the  earlier 
Portuguese,  who  had  been  allowed  to  fall  nca  the 
level  of  the  lower  castes  by  the  Romish  Church  which 
should  have  cared  for  its  sons,  the  mixed  offspring  of 
their  officers  and  writers  early  forced  the  Company  to 
attend  to  them.  So  far  as  these  children  had  sprung 
from  soldiers,  the  Military  Oi'phan  School,  for  which 
David  Brown  first  went  to  India,  was  established  in 
1783,  and  the  Female  Ori)luin  Asylum  in  1815- — noblo 
charities  still.  In  1789  the  charity  school  for  others 
was  developed  into  the  Free  School,  originally  endowed 
with  part  of  the  compensation  paid  by  the  Moorsheda- 
bad  Government  for  its  sack  of  old  Calcutta.  Tho 
immortal  three  of  Serampore  established  the  Benevolent 
Institution  in  Calcutta  to  meet  tho  increasing  need, 
while  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Marshman  conducted  high-class 
schools  at  Serampore  for  the  benefit  of  the  mission. 
More  recently  the  third  of  a  million  sterling,  left  by 
the  Frenchman,  Claude  Martin,  who  "  came  to  India  a 
privat(3  soldier  and  died  a  major-general,"  as  his  tomb 
records,  was  spent  in  Martinieres  or  boarding  schools 
for  poor  Christians  in  Calcutta,  Lucknow,  and  his 
native  city  of  Lyons.  Finally,  the  great  and  good 
Henry  Lawrence  endowed  the  hill  Asylums  which  bear 
his  name,  for  the  children  of  our  Christian  soldiers 
not  otherwise  provided  for.  It  is  a  bright  roll  of 
Christlike  love  covering  a  multitude  of  sins,  not 
judging,  but  healing  and  atoning  fo'^  an  evil  and,  to 
its  victims,  inevitable  past. 

Now  in  all  this  there  is  no  independent  self-effort. 
The  Eurasian  community  has  given  India  and  Eng- 
land some  of  its  best  men  and  women,  whose  virtues 
were  nursed  on  self-i eliance  and  the  fear  of  God.     In 


250  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  183a. 

1823  tho  Eurasians  of  Calcutta  united  to  found  a 
joint  proprietary  school,  catholic  within  tho  limits  of 
Protestantism,  for  tho  higher  education  of  their  chil- 
dren. Their  fine  ideal  they  somewhat  stiffly  ex- 
pressed in  tho  name  they  gave  to  what  became  the 
germ  of  the  Doveton  Colleges,  the  Parental  Aca- 
demic Institution.  In  this  they  followed  tho  Baptist 
founders  of  the  Benevolent  Institution  and  the  Ar- 
menian conductors  of  the  Philanthropic  Institution, 
under  that  good  man  and  scholar,  Johannes  Avdall. 
Their  leader  was  the  son  of  an  English  ensign 
who  fell  at  the  siege  of  Seringapatani,  John  AVilliani 
Ricketts.  He  rose  from  the  Military  Orphan  School, 
through  the  East  India  Company's  establishment 
at  Bencoolen,  to  bo  the  first  of  his  class  in  India. 
This  college  was  the  boon  he  left  them,  as  well  as 
the  right  of  sitting  on  juries  side  by  side  with  their 
fellow  Christians.  But  he  did  moro.  He  deserves 
to  be  remembered  as  the  one  citizen  of  Calcutta  who, 
when  a  public  meeting  was  about  unanimously  to  vote 
a  complimentary  address  to  the  Honble.  Mr.  Adam, 
protested  against  so  honouring  the  man  who  had 
stripped  the  press  in  India  of  liberty. 

We  have  seen  how  Duff  had  been  led,  in  his  early 
despair  of  finding  assistants,  to  think  of  soldiers,  and 
how  he  had  secured  the  young  adventurer,  Clift.  His 
experience  of  the  two  lads  Sunder  and  Pereira,  who 
were  his  first  pupil-teachers,  and  tho  zeal  which  led 
him  to  examine  and  advise  all  the  schools  in  and 
around  Calcutta  of  every  kind,  brought  him  into  close 
relations  with  the  collegiate  school  of  the  Eurasians. 
His  great  services  to  it  led  the  managers  to  nominate 
him  visitor,  side  by  side  with  the  patron,  Lord  Met- 
calfe, of  whose  merits  as  a  Christian  statesman  this 
is  not  the  least,  that  he  was  the  first  official  to  help 
the  Eurasians  to  help  themselves,  as  Lord  Northbrook's 


JEt.  26.       FIGHT   FOR   THE    RIGHTS   OP   CONSCIENCE.  251 

Government  did  long  after,  when  alarmed  at  tlio 
increase  of  Christian  poverty  in  India  caused  by  tlio 
thoughtless  neglect  of  all  the  intervening  administra- 
tions. "  Much  as  has  been  gained,"  he  told  the  com- 
mittee, teachers  and  youth  of  the  school  after  the  tenth 
successful  examination  in  1833  :  "  much  yet  remains  to 
ho  won.  Let  this  community  rise  by  its  own  endea- 
vours ;  unless  men  act  as  men,  what  can  Governments 
do  ?  Moral  and  intellectual  knowledge  are  not  sepa- 
rated, and  we  gain  the  higliest  dignity  of  our  nature 
when  we  cultivate  both." 

For  the  Eurasians  as  for  the  Native  Christians  and 
all  who  were  not  either  Hindoos,  Muhammadaiis  or 
European  British-born  subjects.  Duff  was  in  the  front 
of  those  who  fought  the  battle  for  the  rights  of  con- 
science, which  Lord  William  Bentinck  partially  and 
Lord  Dalhousie  and  Lord  Lawrence  long  after 
completely  secured  to  all  classes.  With  a  true  toler- 
ance, but  in  ignorance  of  what  it  involved,  Warren 
Hastings  in  his  code  of  1772  guaranteed  to  Hindoos 
and  Muhammadans  their  own  laws  of  inheritance. 
But  these  laws  exclude  dissidents  from  their  respective 
religions  from  all  civil  right  to  ancestral  property. 
Conversion  meant  disinheritance,  and  Parliament,  with 
ignorance  equal  to  that  of  Hastings,  wrote  sucli  a  law 
on  the  English  statute-book.  As  if  this  were  not 
enough,  the  East  India  Company  had  by  legislation 
excluded  all  converts  from  public  office  of  any  kind. 
Duff  had  not  been  long  in  Calcutta  when  he  awoke 
to  the  enormity  of  enactments  which  Muhammadans 
themselves  would  never  have  passed  or  enforced,  and 
which  fossilized  Hindooism  for  ever.  From  1830  the 
missionaries  all  over  India  agitated  the  question,  the 
Court  of  Directors  was  stirred  up  by  memorial,  and 
the  Eurasians  sent  home  Mr.  Rickctts  to  petition  Par- 
liament, which  examined  him.     The  result   was  the 


252  LIFE   OF  DR.    DUFF.  1832. 

Kegulation  of  1822,  wLich  provides  that  no  one  shall 
lose  any  rights  or  property,  or  deprive  any  other  of 
rights  or  propertj^  by  changing  his  religion.  Lord 
William  Beiitiuck  had  previously  thrown  open  the 
public  service  to  all  the  natives  of  India,  including 
the  outlawed  Native  Christians,  enacting  that  there 
should  be  no  exclusion  from  office  on  account  of  caste, 
creed  or  nation.  The  development  of  an  enlightened 
legislation  under  Macaulay,  Peacock,  Maine  and 
Stephen,  has  now  given  the  varied  creeds  and  races  of 
India  better  codes  than  any  country  possesses,  and, 
save  as  to  the  rights  of  minors  and  age  of  majority — 
not  yet  settled  in  England — nothing  more  is  needed. 

But  how  desirable  that  is  still  may  appear  from  the 
first  collision  with  the  law,  or  rather  the  lawyers,  in 
defence  of  the  rights  of  conscience.  The  missionaries 
were  those  of  the  Church  of  England,  their  natural 
defender  was  the  newly  arrived  Bishop  Wilson,  but 
their  actual  leader  was  the  young  Highlander,  whose 
zeal  for  fair-play  and  civil  and  religious  liberty  led  him 
alone  into  the  breach  and  tj  victory. 

The  case  occurred  just  after  the  whole  Mission- 
ary Conference  had  publicly  answered  a  thoughtless 
attack  upon  them  by  the  then  rising  orientalist,  H.  H. 
Wilson,  and  had  forced  that  keen  Hindooizer  to 
apologise  to  them.  From  the  day  when,  in  180(S, 
Wilson  reported  his  arrival  at  Calcutta  a  young 
assistant  surgeon,  he  became  })opular  as  an  amateur 
actor  and  musician  in  the  local  theatre,  and  as  a  most 
versatile  and  accomplished  member  of  society.  But 
he  worked  hard  at  Sanscrit  in  the  midst  of  all  his 
amusements,  so  that  in  five  years  he  published  his 
first  translation,  that  of  Kalidasa's  Mcghaduta  or 
"  Cloud  Messenger,"  and  in  six  more  his  great 
Sanscrit-English  dictionary  appeared.  He  gradually 
established  his  reputation  as,  next  to  Colebrooke,  the 


^t.  26.    H.  H.  WILSON  APOLOGISES  TO  THE  MISSIONARIES.    253 

greatest  of  English  orientalists.  Just  before  lie  went 
home,  in  1832,  to  be  the  first  Boden  professor  of 
Sanscrit  in  Oxford,  an  appointment  which  he  gained 
by  the  narrow  majority  of  seven  over  the  learned  and 
devout  Dr.  Mill,  he  wrote  a  letter  on  the  study  of 
Sanscrit  literature  in  England,  at  the  request  of 
Bishop  Turner.  In  that  letter  this  passage  occurred: 
*'  In  Bengal  the  better  order  of  Hindoos  regard  the 
missionaries  with  feelings  of  inveterate  animosity, 
whilst  they  invariably  express  a  high  respect  for 
clergymen  of  the  Established  Church.  They  cannot 
avoid  seeing  that  the  latter  are  held  in  higher  estima- 
tion by  the  European  society,  and  that  they  cannot 
be  reproached  with  practices  which  not  unfrequently 
degrade  the  missionary  character  in  the  eyes  of  the 
natives."  Called  to  account  for  this  "  snobbish "  as 
^vell  as  libellous  statement  by  "  the  missionaries  of 
all  denominations  in  Calcutta,"  Dr.  H.  H.  Wilson  ex- 
plained that  the  letter  was  private  and  had  not  been 
published  by  him,  and  that  he  was  exceedingly  sorr^ 
to  learn  it  "  should  have  given  pain  to  the  missionaries 
of  Calcutta,  for  whom  generally  I  have  a  high  respect, 
and  with  several  of  whom  I  have  long  been  and  hope 
long  to  be  on  terms  of  kind  and  friendly  intercourse." 
His  defence  on  the  merits  was,  that  he  merely  re- 
ported the  opinions  of  high  caste  Bengalee  society, 
which  he  did  not  share.  This  made  it  the;  more  im- 
portant that  the  missionaries  should  meet  the  reflec- 
tions nnon  tliPiu,  which  they  did  in  a  letter  signed 
by  the  lev.  C.  Grogerly,  the  Conference  secretary,  and 
full  of  hibcorical  interest  to  all  who  would  trace  the 
development  of  Christianity  in  India.* 

The  truth  is,  that  Dr.  H.  H.  Wilson  only  too  ac- 
curately, because  undesignedly    and   without  malice, 


« 


Calcutta  Ohristian  Observer  for  Oct.,  1832,  vol.  i.,  p.  233. 


254  I^IFE    OF   DR.    DUFF.  1832. 

expressed  the  contempt  with  which  missionaries  had 
been  regarded  by  men  and  ministers  of  the  world,  in 
the  days  of  the  vile  treatment  of  Carey  and  his 
colleagues  by  their  home  committee,  which  tempted 
the  sneers  of  Sydney  Smith  in  the  Edinlmrgh  P^'vieio. 
For  men  to  live  in  poverty,  and  die  unknown  by  their 
contemporaries,  for  the  sake  of  oppressed  or  savage 
or  superstition-ridden  races,  while  really  the  pioneers 
of  the  Government  which  proscribed  them  and  the 
founders  of  civihzation  and  scholarship,  was  to  be  pro- 
nounced mean,  weak,  illiterate  creatures.  Alexander 
Duff  in  Eastern,  as  John  Wilson  in  Western  India, 
was  the  first  to  change  all  that,  even  before  the  gentle 
Carey's  death,  alike  by  his  work  and  by  such  an 
exposure  of  the  calumny  that  the  boldest  scoffer 
dared  not  repeat  the  lie. 

It  happened  thus.  Duff's  success  had  led  the 
Church  Missionary  Society  to  open  an  English  school 
in  its  Amherst-strcet  mission-house.  Of  that  Duff's 
second  convert,  Krishna  Mohun  Banerjea,  had  been  ap- 
pointed master.  There  Brijonath  Ghose,  after  several 
months'  instruction,  sought  baptism,  and  took  refuge 
-vith  his  own  countryman,  the  master,  to  escape  the 
persecution  of  his  family.  He  was  above  fourteen 
years  of  age,  then  bolieved  to  be  the  Hindoo  age  of 
discretion,  as  it  is  more  than  that  of  puberty  and 
marriage.  Blackstone  lays  it  down  that  a  boy  "^  at 
fourteen  is  at  years  of  discretion,  and  therefore  may 
consent  or  disagree  tc  marriage."  The  father  had 
taken  the  youth  from  the  Hindoo  College,  lest  the 
purely  secular  education  there  should  make  him  a 
'*'  nastik "  or  atheist,  and  had  placed  him  under  so 
well-known  a  Christian  convert  as  Krishna  Mohun, 
aftbr  hearing  the  bishop  declare  that  instruction  in 
Christianity  was  the  grand  object  of  the  school.  Yet, 
under  a  writ  of  habeas  corjjus,  to  which  Krishnr/Mohun 


JEt.  24.  THE   FIRST   HABEAS   COEPUS   CASE.  255 

replied  that  the  boy  was  not  in  his  custody,  Brijonatk 
liiraself  appeared  at  the  bar  of  the  Supremo  Court. 
After  pleadings  on  both  sides,  it  was  decided  that  he 
must  be  delivered  up  to  his  father  as  not  of  age,  being 
only  ''fourteen  years  or  thereabouts."  Documentary 
evidence  of  age,  from  the  horoscope,  is  fabricated  in 
India  with  an  ease  which  has  led  the  civil  service 
commissioners  in  England  to  reject  it  altogether, 
while  oral  witnesses  can  be  purchased  at  sixpence  a 
head.  The  test  of  discretion,  of  intelligence,  of  sincer- 
ity, seems  to  have  been  rejected,  as  it  never  was  in 
England  in  cases  which  were  then  frequent  in  Chancery 
as  to  Protestant,  Roman  Catholic,  and  Jewish  minors. 
The  daily  papers,  by  no  means  prejudiced  in  favour 
of  men  at  whose  puritanism  they  were  too  ready  to 
laugh,  described  the  scene  at  this  the  first  attempt  to 
vindicate  for  the  natives  themselves,  who  will  one  day 
be  grateful  for  the  act,  the  rights  of  conscience. 
"  The  poor  fellow,"  reported  the  Bengal  IlurharUy 
"  was  then  seized  hold  of  by  the  father,  who  could  not 
get  him  out  of  the  court  without  considerable  exertion. 
The  little  fellow  cried  most  bitterly,  repeated  his 
appeals  to  the  judges,  seized  hold  of  the  barristers* 
table,  and  was  dragged  inch  by  inch  out  of  the  court, 
amidst  the  sympathy  of  some  and  the  triumph  of 
others."  Bishop  Wilson,  who  was  to  have  baptized 
him,  felt  "  lively  grief ;  "  but  he  contented  himself  with 
this  remark,  "  A  free  agent  I  really  believe  that  boy 
was ;  and  the  law  of  deliverance  has  been  to  him  and 
still  is  an  imprisonment."  In  three  years  thereafter, 
when  the  most  intolerant  could  no  longer  doubt  his 
age,  the  youth,  earnest  and  consistent  amid  all  the 
persecution,  was  with  three  others  baptized. 

The  father's  counsel  was  Mr.  Longueville  Clark, 
who  had  then  been  ten  years  at  the  Calcutta  bar,  and 
continued  there  for  nearly  forty  more,  with  the  repu- 


256  LIFE    OF    DR.    DUFF.  1832. 

tation  of  being  one  of  the  best  chess-players  m  the 
world.  To  the  legitimate  arts  by  which  he  served  his 
client,  he  added  in  open  court  the  statement  which, 
under  other  circumstances  and  as  afterwards  intensi- 
fied, might  have  been  libellous,  that  "  this  was  a  case 
of  great  importance,  as  the  rights  of  Hindoo  parents 
were  too  often  invaded  by  the  missionaries  in  Cal- 
cutta!" Brijonath's  was  the  first  case  of  the  kind;  it 
involved  great  legal  as  well  as  moral  principles,  certain 
to  be  again  questioned ;  and  'die  charge  was  repeated 
against  the  whole  body  of  missionaries  not  many 
months  after  they  had  received  a  courteous  apology 
from  Dr.  H.  H.  Wilson.  After  in  vain  appealing  to  the 
most  experienced  agents  of  the  missionary  societies 
to  vindicate  the  common  purity  of  motive,  rectitude 
of  action  and  inevitable  sense  of  duty,  Mr.  Duff,  the 
youngest  among  them,  entered  the  lists.  Having 
failed  to  obtain  from  Mr.  Clark  the  most  microscopic 
evidence  of  his  statement  beyond  general  assertions, 
which  added  to  the  injury  the  insult  that  the 
conduct  of  the  missionaries  was  "  flagitious  and 
dangerous,"  Mr.  Duff  resolved  to  publish  the  corre- 
spondence. 

But  where  ?  The  three  daily  papers  he  believed  to 
be  hostile  to  him  at  that  time.  Fortunately,  Mr.  Stoc- 
queler,  also  of  the  Sans  Souci  theatre  set  of  amateurs, 
had  come  round  from  Bombay  to  Calcutta,  and  had 
bought  the  Tory  newspaper  of  Dr.  Bryce,  the  John 
Bull.  Securing  as  his  staff  of  heavy  writers  Sir  John 
Peter  Grant,  who  had  resigned  the  Bombay  bench  after 
his  squabbles  with  Sir  John  Malcolm,  Mr.  John  Farley 
Leith,  now  M.P.  for  Aberdeen,  and  Mr.  Charles  Thack- 
eray, uncle  of  the  great  prose  satirist,  the  new  editor 
converted  the  almost  defunct  daily  into  the  liberal 
Englishman.  At  that  press  Macaulay  used  soon  after 
to  print  the  rough  proofs  of  those  essays  which  he 


M.  26.         OASTIG\TES   MR.    LONGUEVILLE   CLARK.  257 

sent  from  India  to  Napier,  while  Hohvell's  monument 
to  the  memory  of  those  who  died  in  the  Black  Hole 
still  perpetuated  the  humiliation,  and  Plassey  looked 
as  it  had  done  on  that  morning  of  sunshine  breaking 
through  the  rain-clouds  when  Clivo  gave  the  order  to 
cross  the  river.  Mr.  Duff  found  tlio  new  editor  will- 
ing to  look  at  the  correspondence,  though  alarmed  by 
its  bulk,  and  was  surprised  to  find  the  whole  in  next 
morning's  paper,  introduced  by  fair  and  even  bold 
editorial  remarks.  The  case  is  only  another  illustra- 
tion of  that  marvellous  power  of  persuasion  which, 
resting  always  on  a  good  cause,  made  Duff  irresistible, 
even  by  experts  like  himself,  in  private  discussion  still 
more  than  in  his  most  skilful  and  eloquent  orations. 
We  remember  a  later  case,  in  which,  in  the  more 
judicial  Friend  of  India,  one  who  has  since  proved 
the  most  brilliant  of  English  journalists,  having  advo- 
cated one  side  of  a  question,  was  led  by  the  moral 
suasion  and  logical  power  of  Duff,  directed  by  a  spirit 
of  purest  philanthropy,  to  confess  that  he  was  wrong, 
frankly  stated  the  other  side,  convinced  the  Govern- 
mf    ',  and  altered  the  proposed  action. 

Never,  in  all  the  controversies  which  we  have  read 
or  heard,  have  first  thoughtless  misrepresentation 
and  then  deliberate  malice  received  such  a  castigation. 
There  are  passages  in  the  twenty  octavo  pages  of 
Duff's  alternate  scorn  and  ridicule,  reasoned  demon- 
stration and  rhetorical  appeal,  of  which  Junius  would 
have  been  worthy  if  that  pitiless  foe  had  fought  with 
sacred  weapons  and.  for  other  than  self-seeking  ends. 
The  Christian  is  never  forgotten,  for  it  is  the  rights 
of  conscience  and  the  supremacy  of  truth  for  which 
he  fights.  Nor  is  the  man,  the  Celt,  the  indignant  de- 
fender of  the  honour  of  his  colleagues,  of  the  glory  of 
his  Master  in  them,  and  of  the  grandeur  of  their  one 
mission,  wanting.     The  reply  of  the  barrister  was  tho 

s 


258  LIFE   OF   DB.    DUFF.  1833. 

mocking  laugh  of  Mcphistopholes,  the  expression  of 
a  desire  to  secure  the  missionary  "  for  our  Calcutta 
Drary."  The  press  and  all  society  were  disgusted 
or  indignant  at  the  lawyer  assailant,  to  whom  Avaa 
applied  the  couplet  from  Young's  Epistle  to  Pope  : — 

"  He  rams  his  quill  with  scandal  and  with  scoff, 
But  'tis  so  very  foul  it  won*t  go  off." 

The  episode  closed,  for  ever,  the  period  of  super- 
cilious contempt  and  intolerant  misrepresentation  of 
men  and  of  a  cause  soon  found  to  be  identified  with 
the  best  interests  of  the  Hindoos  themselves  as  well 
as  of  the  British  Government.  The  defeated  barrister 
expressed  the  desire  of  seeking  the  satisfaction  appro- 
priate to  himself,  in  a  challenge  to  fight  a  duel,  which 
only  the  black  coat  of  the  defender  of  the  faith  pre- 
vented him  from  sending.  But  he  went  so  far  as  to 
consult  a  friend  on  the  subject. 

All  the  local  honours  and  attentions  which  Calcutta 
society  could  at  that  time  off'er  had  been  presseo  upon 
Mr.  Duff  ever  since  the  first  examination  of  his  school. 
Especially  did  the  loading  men  urge  him  to  join  the 
Bengal  Asiatic  Society,  although  with  most  of  them 
he  was  conducting  the  Oriental  controversy.  But  duty 
to  his  daily  work  prevailed  over  his  natural  tastes,  and 
the  memory  of  Dassen  Island  was  never  absent  from 
him  in  the  face  of  what  he  regarded  as  temptations  to 
literary  self-indulgence.  Of  the  publications,  library, 
and  other  aids  of  the  Society  he  made  full  use  in 
the  war  of  languages,  alphabets  and  systems.  Much 
more  evident  to  him  was  the  duty  of  using  the  Agri- 
cultural Society  of  India,  founded  by  Carey  for  the 
improvement  of  the  peasantry  and  the  enlightenment 
of  the  great  zemindars  whom  the  permanent  settlement 
of  Lord  CornwaUis  had  recognised  as  copyhold  land- 
lords on  a  vast  scale.     Of  this  body  he  was  long  a 


^t.  26.       DECLINES   TO   ATTEND   AN   OFFICIAL   BALL.  259 

member,  alike  in  its  executive  and  in  its  publications 
committee,  and  thus  lie  found  outlets  for  many  of 
the  educated  natives,  non-Christian  as  well  as  Chris- 
tian.' 

Of  the  social  life  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Duff  at  this  period 
we  have  one  significant  glimpse.  The  accession  of 
William  IV.  to  the  throne  was  marked  by  an  ofhcial 
ball  at  Government  House,  to  which  tliey  were  duly 
invited  by  Lord  and  Lady  William  Bentinck.  Per- 
plexed, the  Scottish  missionary  took  counsel  of  a  chap- 
lain, who  assured  him  that,  viewing  the  invitation  as 
a  command,  he  was  in  the  1  .bit  of  going  to  Govern- 
ment House  on  such  occasions,  of  making  his  bow  to 
the  Governor-General  and  his  wife  and  at  once  retiring. 
This  compromise  did  not  commend  itself  to  Mr.  Duff, 
even  although  he  had  not  remembered  the  memorable 
experience  of  the  first  Bishop  of  Calcutta.  On  the 
occasion  of  the  trial  of  Queen  Caroline,  a  witness  for 
the  defence  attempted  to  justify  her  presence  at  an 
indecent  dance  by  the  assurance  that  he  had  seen 
Bishop  Middleton  and  his  family  at  a  nautch  in 
Government  House.  A  reference  made  to  Calcutta 
elicited  the  fact  that  Dr.  Middleton's  family  were 
present  but  not  himself ;  and  the  Marquis  of  Hastings 
sent  the  explanation  to  the  Lord  Chancellor  that  the 
movement  of  a  woman's  feet  while  she  sings  cannot 
be  called  dancing.  This,  however,  was  not  a  nautch, 
but  an  official  ball  for  Europeans  only,  such  as  that  from 
which,  at  a  later  period.  Lord  Elgin  carefully  excluded 
native  nobles,  who  were  liable  to  misunderstand  the 
motives  of  English  ladies  on  these  occasions.  Mr. 
Duff  frankly  stated,  in  a  letter  to  the  private  secretary, 
the  reasons  why  he  could  not  conscientiously  obey  the 
most  kind  and  courteous  command  of  the  ruler  of 
India.  After  long  delay  he  received  the  Governor- 
General's   cordial   approval  of   his  spirit  and  action. 


26o  LIFE    OF   DR.    DUFF.  1834 

Soon  after  his  Excellency  begged  the  missionary  and 
his  wife  to  meet  him  at  dinner  in  one  of  those  frequent 
gatherings  where  the  two  men  discussed,  in  a  like 
spirit,  the  highest  good  of  the  people  and  the  govern- 
ment of  India. 

Lord  AYilliam  Bentinck  left  India  after  sickness  liad 
driven  Duff  home  for  a  time.  He  was  a  statesman 
and  a  phihmthropist  worthy  to  be  associated  in  tlio 
spiritual  as  well  as  intellectual  refoi'niation  of  India 
with  the  man  to  whom,  in  his  absence  and  wlien 
bidding  all  the  missionaries  good-bye,  lie  made  this 
reference,  after  answering  those  who  would  nse  the 
force  of  the  conqueror  and  the  influence  of  the 
state-paid  bishop  to  induce  the  profession  of  Chris- 
tianity :  *'  Being  as  anxious  as  any  of  these  excellent 
persons  for  the  diffusion  of  Christianity  through  all 
countries,  but  knowing  better  than  they  do  the  ground 
we  stand  upon,  my  humble  advice  to  them  is,  Ilely 
exclusively  upon  the  humble,  pious  and  learned  mis- 
sionary. His  labours,  divested  of  all  human  power, 
create  no  distrust.  Encourage  education  with  all  your 
means.  The  offer  of  religious  truth  in  the  school  of 
the  missionary  is  without  objection.  It  is  or  is  not 
accepted.  If  it  is  not,  the  other  seeds  of  instruction 
may  take  root  and  yield  a  rich  and  abundant  harvest 
of  improvement  and  future  benefit.  I  would  give 
them  as  an  example  in  support  of  tliis  advice,  the 
school  founded  exactly  upon  those  principles,  lately 
superintended  by  the  estimable  Mr.  Duff,  that  has  been 
attended  with  such  unparalleled  success.  I  would  say 
to  them  finally,  that  they  could  not  send  to  India  too 
many  labourers  in  the  vineyard  like  those  whom  I  have 
now  the  gratification  of  addressing.  Farewell.  May 
God  Almighty  give  you  health  and  strength  to  prose- 
ciite  your  endeavours,  and  may  He  bless  them  with 
success."      The  deputation  to  whom  the   great  pro- 


M^  28.  TUE    SCUOOL    IJICCOMKS    A    COLLEGE.  20l 

consul  addressed  words  such  as  had  never  before  been 
lieurd  from  a,  Governor-General's  lips — nor  since — 
consisted  of  the  venerable  Dr.  Marslnnan,  the  saintly 
Lacroix  and  Mackay,  Messrs.  Sandys,  Yates  and  W. 
Morton. 

Lord  William  Bentinck  left  the  land  for  wliich  ho 
had  done  so  much,  in  Marc'  ,  18:35,  eight  montlis  after 
Dull",  whose  work  he  legislatively  coni[)leted  in  the  last 
weeks  of  his  seven  years'  administration.  But  Dnlf 
was  not  driven  from  his  position,  even  by  almost  deadly 
disease,  until  he  had  developed  liis  school,  with  Mackay 
at  his  side,  into  "  a  complete  Arts  College  including 
the  thorough  study  of  the  Bible  as  well  as  the  evi- 
dences and  doctrines  of  natural  and  revealed  re- 
liirion."  The  annual  examination  of  the  classes  in 
the  town-hall  became  one  of  the  notable  events  of  the 
year,  when  there  assembled  the  best  representatives  of 
all  society,  European  and  native,  from  the  Governor- 
General  and  his  wife,  and  the  learned  S'^/U  of  the 
founder  of  the  orthodox  Dharma  Sobha,  the  Raja 
Rhadakant  Deb,  to  the  humblest  Baboo  or  middle- class 
Bengalee.  Reporters,  through  all  the  newspapers, 
spread  tlio  facts  of  the  six  hours'  testing  of  Plindoos 
in  Biblical  as  well  as  secular  knowledge,  over  Southern 
and  Eastern  Asia.  Mr.  ]\Iack,  the  able  graduate  of  the 
University  of  Edinburgh,  whom  the  Seramporo  three 
had  associated  with  them  in  their  educational  and 
literary  labours,  used  to  publish  a  critical  estimate  o*^ 
the  whole,  which  guided  the  many  imitators  of  Duff, 
Christian  and  non-Christian,  to  higher  efforts.  We 
may  leave  with  him  for  a  time  the  famous  General 
Assembly's  Institution,  with  this  description  of  its 
founder  as  he  first  appeared  to  a  little  trembling  eager- 
eyed  boy  brought  in  from  the  jungles  of  Bengal  to 
learn  English  by  an  orthodox  father,  who  ran  the  risk 
of  afterwards  seeing  his  son  a  Christian  and  in  time 


262  LIFE    OF   DR.    DUFF. 


1834. 


u  missionary.     Tlio  Rev.  Lai  Bchari  Day  writes  of  this 
time : — * 

"  It  was  some  day  in  the  year  1834  that  I  accompanied  my 
father  to  the  General  Assembly's  Institution.  It  was  about  a 
month  after  I  had  been  admitted  into  the  institution  that  I 
caught  a  near  view  of  the  illustrious  missionary.  He  came 
into  the  class-room  while  we  were  engaged  in  reading  the  first 
page  of  the  '  First  Instructor  ' — the  fii'st  of  a  series  of  class- 
books  compiled  by  himself;  and  though  forty-four  years  have 
elapsed  since  tlie  occurrence  of  the  incident  my  recollection 
of  it  is  as  vivid  as  if  it  had  happened  only  yesterday.  I  cannot 
say  he  walked  into  the  class-room — he  runJied  into  it,  his  move- 
ments in  those  days  being  exceedingly  rapid.  He  was  dressed 
all  in  black,  and  wore  a  beard.  He  scarcely  stood  still  for  a 
single  second,  but  kept  his  feet  and  his  hands  moving  inces- 
santly, like  a  horse  of  high  mettle.  He  seemed  to  have  more 
life  in  him  than  most  men.  lie  had  his  white  pocket-hand- 
kerchief in  his  hand,  which  he  was  every  now  and  then  tying 
round  his  arm  and  twistmg  into  a  thousand  shapes.  Ho 
seemed  to  be  a  living  personation  of  perpetual  motion.  But 
what  attracted  my  notice  most  was  the  constant  shrugging  of 
his  shoulders,  a  habit  which  he  afterwards  left  off  but  which 
he  had  at  that  time  in  full  perfection.  In  our  lesson  there 
occurred  the  word  *  ox ' :  he  took  hold  of  that  word  and 
catechised  us  on  it  for  about  half  an  hour.  He  asked  us  (the 
master  interpreting  his  English  to  us  in  Bengalee)  whether  wo 
had  seen  an  ox,  how  many  legs  it  had,  whether  it  had  any 
hands,  whether  it  had  any  tails,  to  the  infinite  entertainment 
of  us  all.  From  the  ox  he  passed  on  to  the  cow,  and  asked  us 
c^  what  use  the  animal  was.  The  reader  may  rest  assured  that 
he  did  not  speak  before  Hindoo  boys  of  the  use  made  of  the 
flesh  of  the  cow,  but  dwelt  chiefly  on  milk,  cream  and  curds. 
He  ended,  however,  with  a  moral  lesson.  He  knew  that  the 
word  for  a  cow  in  Bengalee  was  goroo,  and  he  asked  us  whether 
we  knew  another  Bengalee  word  which  was  very  like  it  in 
sound.  A  sharp  class-fellow  quickly  said  that  he  knew  its 
paronym  and  that  it  was  gooroo,  which  in  Bengalee  means  the 

•  EecuUedtons  of  Alex  an  J  er  Puff,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  and  of  the  Mission 
College  which  he  founded  in  Calcutta.    187l>. 


Af.i.  38.  UJi    WEAUS   lilMSKLF    OUT.  263 

Uniliinan  spiritual  guide.  IIo  was  quito  delighted  at  the  boy*a 
discovery,  and  uskod  us  of  what  use  tho  (jouruu  was,  uud  whoLhor, 
on  tho  whole,  the  tjoroo  was  not  more  useful  thati  tho  ijooroo. 
Ho  then  left  our  class  and  went  into  anotlior,  leaving  in  our 
minds  seeds  of  future  thouj^ht  and  reflection.^' 

To  liis  own  college  teaching  and  such  school  super- 
vision Mr.  Duff  added  a  constant  attention  to  tho 
aggressive  work  of  tho  Bengal  auxiliary  of  tho  British 
and  Foreign  Bible  Society  and  of  the  lleligious  Tract 
and  Book  Society.  His  Sunday  evenings  were  given 
up  in  1833-'U  to  a  new  course  of  lectures  and  discus- 
sions, contrasting  Christianity  with  Hindooism  and 
Muhammadauism.  For  tliese  public  controversies  ho 
purchased  an  excellent  bungalow  in  the  native  city,  at 
a  point  where  four  main  thoroughfares  met.  Night 
after  night  for  a  long  time  eager  inquirers,  earnest 
disputants  and  curious  spectators  crowded  the  place 
almost  to  suffocation.  Every  year  was  adding  to  tho 
intelligence  of  the  native  public,  the  purely  spiritual 
and  moral  suasion  of  Christianity  was  coming  to  be 
understood,  and  this  last  course  proved  tho  most 
popular  of  all.  Even  Muhammadans  attended  and 
took  part  in  the  grave  quest  after  divine  truth,  and 
the  crowds  spread  the  sto^y  not  only  over  tho  city  but 
into  many  a  rural  villago  where  the  Christian  mis- 
sionary had  not  been  seen. 

But  what  of  the  man  himself  who,  for  four  years, 
did  not  cease  to  burn  thus  lavishly  and  incessantly 
the  physical  energy  he  had  brought  from  the  Scottish 
Grampians,  the  exhaustless  enthusiasm  he  ever  fed  at 
its  heavenly  source  ?  He  had  received  his  first  warn- 
ing in  the  great  cyclone  of  May,  1833,  but  heeded  it  not. 
Prematurely  came  the  rain  that  year,  marshalled  by 
the  rotary  hurricane  which,  revolving  within  itself,  as 
if  the  destroying  counterpart  of  the  harmony  of  the 
spheres,  moved  rapidly  over  the  land.      From  the  Bay 


264  LU'^E    OF   DR.    DUFF.  1833. 

of  Bengal,  the  mighty  waters  of  which  it  dragged  in 
its  devastating  train,  over  isUind  and  mainland,  forest 
and  field,  village  and  town,  the  wild  fury  of  the  cyclone 
rolled  itself  north  and  west.  Here  the  storm-wave 
and  the  wind  bore  inland  for  miles  to  some  rising 
ground  a  full  freighted  Indiaman  of  1500  tons,  among 
the  hamlets  of  the  peasantry,  where  for  months  after 
it  lay  a  marvel  to  all.  There  it  swept  into  sometimes 
instant  but  more  frequently  lingering  death  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  human  beings  and  their  cattle,  whose 
vain  3truggles  to  cling  to  roofs  and  trees  and  the 
iloatinfif  wreck  of  their  desolated  homes  susfo^ested 
thoughts  of  a  greater  flood  and  prayers  for  the  bow 
of  mercy.  Most  graphic  of  all  was  this  incident,  which 
we  tell  as  Duff  himself  told  it  to  the  writer.  His 
authority  was  the  Argyllshire  fellow-countryman  who, 
on  that  dreadful  day,  was  superintending  the  clearing 
of  the  jungle  on  Saugar  Island. 

For  several  weeks  before  his  party  had  been  an- 
noyed by  the  night  attacks  of  a  tiger  of  unusual  size 
and  ferocity.  It  carried  away  some  of  their  animals 
employed  in  agricultural  operations,  as  well  as  two  or 
three  human  beings.  When  the  cyclone  prevailed 
and  the  water  continued  to  rise  over  the  island, 
as  many  natives  as  could  swim  went  to  the  Scots- 
man's bungalow  for  shelter,  until  it  was  greatly  over- 
crowded. At  last,  while  watching  the  flood  rapidly 
rising  to  a  level  with  the  floor,  at  a  distance,  driven 
before  the  tempest  along  the  mighty  torrent  of  waters, 
he  noticed  the  famous  tiger  evidently  aiming  at  reach- 
ing the  house.  Happily  he  had  a  double-barrelled 
gun  loaded  and  ready.  The  tiger  reached  the  bun- 
galow, laid  hold  of  it,  leaped  into  it,  worked  a  way 
trembling  through  the  dense  mass  of  human  beings, 
and  did  not  stop  till  he  got  head  and  nose  into  the 
remotest  corner,  where  he  continued  to  lie  still  quiver- 


J 


^t.  27.  THE    CYCLONE   AND   THE   TIGER.  265 

ing  like  an  .  ipen  leaf.  The  Scotsman  concluded 
that  though,  under  the  influence  of  terror  produced 
by  the  violence  of  the  tempest,  he  was  then  quite 
tame,  if  the  bungalow  escaped  and  the  storm  abated 
the  genuine  nature  of  the  savage  brute  would 
return,  and  all  the  more  speedily  from  the  exhaus- 
tion it  must  have  undergone  swimming  and  strug- 
gling to  reach  the  bungalow.  So  he  very  coolly  took 
the  gun  and  pointed  the  barrel  to  the  heart,  rest- 
ing it  on  the  skin,  which  he  afterwards  showed  to  all 
Calcutta  as  a  trophy  of  that  cyclone.  Thus  mingled 
were  the  terrors  of  the  tempest,  which  has  often  since 
recurred,  and  on  the  last  occasion,  in  1876,  even  more 
horribly. 

The  effect  on  the  survivors  was  for  a  time  quite  as 
deadly.  Many  who  escaped  the  flood  fell  by  the  pesti- 
lence which  it  brought  when  the  waters  subsided  and 
the  cold  season  of  1833-84  came  round.  Malarious 
fever,  bred  by  the  rotting  carcases  and  vegetation, 
spread  a  blight  over  the  fairest  portions  of  the  rice 
land.  Inexperienced  in  tropical  sanitation,  and  bound 
to  discharge  the  duty  of  inspecting  the  prosperous 
branch  school  at  Takee,  Mr.  Duff*,  his  family  with  him, 
set  off"  by  native  boat  for  the  place,  which  is  seventy 
miles  due  east  of  Calcutta.  It  was  November, 
and  the  country  was  only  beginning  to  dry  up. 
Scarcely  had  they  left  the  city  when  they  came  upon 
a  mass  of  putrid  bodies,  human  and  animal,  through 
which  they  had  to  work  their  way.  All  was  beautiful 
to  look  at  in  the  green  jungle  forests  of  the  Soonder- 
buns,  but  the  abundant  fruit  from  which  the  Bengalees 
take  their  proverbial  word  for  "  hypocrite  "  symbol- 
ised the  reality.  Mr.  Duff  plucked  the  tempting 
raJchalee  only  to  find  it  filled  with  nauseous  slime. 
Mr.  Barlow,  son  of  Sir  George  Barlow  who  had  been 
interim  Governor-General,  was  in  charge  of  the  Com- 


266  LIFE   OF   DB.   DUFF.  1834. 

pany's  salt  station  of  Takee  on  £8,000  a  year.  Dr. 
and  Mrs.  Temple  received  the  missionary  and  Lis  party 
with  their  usual  hospitality.  The  return  journey,  by 
palankeen,  was  even  worse,  and  the  missionary  was 
laid  low  by  his  first  illness,  jungle  fever  in  its  deadliest 
form.  His  fine  constitution  showed  that  robust  elas- 
ticity which  often  afterwards  resulted  in  rapid  recovery, 
and  after  tossing  amid  the  sea  breezes  of  the  Sand- 
heads  for  two  o^^  three  weeks  he  was  once  more  in 
the  midst  of  his  loved  work.  But  with  the  heat  of 
April,  1834,  a  remittent  fever  came  on  which  his 
vigour  of  will  resisted  so  far  as  to  take  him,  again  and 
in  that  weather,  to  Takee.  Dr.  Temple,  alarmed  at 
his  appearance,  at  once  sent  him  back,  warning  him 
against  the  scourge  which,  oven  more  than  cholera  still, 
was  then  the  ojyj^robriwm  medicorum — dysentery. 

On  his  return  at  the  height  of  the  hot  season 
he  found  as  his  guest  the  good  Anthony  Groves, 
surgeon-dentist  of  Exeter,  who  gave  up  all  he  had 
for  a  mission  to  Baghdad,  and  was  the  first  and  best 
of  the  Plymouth  Brethren.  The  romantic  and  very 
pathetic  story  of  that  mission  to  Muhammadaus  under 
a  Government  which  punished  apostasy  with  death, 
the  experience  of  Francis  W.  Newman  and  Mr.  Parnell 
and  the  young  Kitto — this  is  not  the  place  to  tell,  as 
Groves  told  it  in  the  sympathising  and  sometimes 
amused  ear  of  Alexander  Duff  in  4,  Wellington  Square, 
Calcutta.  For  when  the  two  widowers.  Groves  and 
Parnell,  and  the  young  bachelor,  Newman,  left  Bagh- 
dad, they  could  not  leave  behind  them  their  one  con- 
vert, the  ?ovely  Armenian  widow  of  Shiraz,  Khatoon,- 
nor  could  she  travel  with  them  save  as  the  wife  of  one 
of  them.  So  they  cast  lots,  and  the  lot  fell  on  John 
Vesey  Parnell,  graduate  of  Edinburgh  University ;  and 
when  he  succeeded  his  father,  the  first  Baron,  in  1842 
she  became  Lady  Congleton.     So  we  have  seen  more 


Mi.  28.  VISIT   OP   ME.    ANTHONY    GROVES.  267 

recently,  but  according  to  their  regular  custom,  the  lot 
fall  on  the  Moravian  who,  having  descended  from  the 
snowy  solitudes  of  Himalayan  Lahoul  to  receive  the 
brides  sent  out  by  the  followers  of  Zinzendorf,  married 
one  and  conducted  the  others  to  his  exnoctant  brethren. 
Duff  must  have  smiled  when  his  gue^D,  of  high,  even 
childlike  spirituality,  gravely  told  him  how  when  Parnell 
had  invited  the  British  Resident  at  Baghdad  and  the 
European  assistants  to  dinner,  he  applied  Luke  xiv.  13 
literally  by  calling  in  some  fifty  of  the  poor,  the  maimed, 
the  lame  and  the  blind  to  sha^e  the  feast. 

Having  come  round  by  Bombay  and  Tinnevelly, 
where  he  renewed  an  old  friendship  with  Mr.  Rhenius, 
and  was  charmed  by  the  primitive  simplicity  of  the 
native  church  there,  as  Bishop  Cotton  was  thirty  years 
after,  Mr.  Groves  found  himself  in  a  new  world  when 
among  the  j'^oung  Brahmaus  who  were  searching  the 
Scriptures  diligently.  After  a  general  survey  of  the 
whole  school  and  college  he  was  closeted  with  the 
highest  class,  and  left  to  examine  them  on  the  Bible, 
on  theology,  and  in  detail  on  the  evidences  of  Chris- 
tianity. Himself  an  excellent  scholar,  Mr.  Groves  was 
astonished  at  the  intelligence  and  promptitude  of  the 
replies.  But  the  whole  force  of  his  loving  nature  was 
drawn  out  when  he  came  to  examine  these  Hindoos  on 
the  design  and  effect  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  Son  of  God 
on  the  Cross  of  Calvary.  His  questioning  burst  forth 
into  an  appeal  which  pressed  home  on  their  conscience 
the  knowledge  they  had  shown,  while  he  wept  in  his 
fervour,  and  the  eyes  of  the  young  men  glowed  with 
reflected  inspiration.  Then  turning  suddenly  to  Mr. 
Duff  he  exclaimed,  "  This  is  what  I  have  been  in 
quest  of  ever  since  I  left  old  England.  At  Baghdad 
I  almost  daily  exhorted  the  adult  natives,  but  in  the 
case  of  even  the  most  attentive  I  always  painfully  felt 
there  was  a  crust  between  their  mind  and  mine.     Here 


268  LIFE   OF   DB.   DUFF.  1834. 

1  feel  that  every  word  is  finding  its  way  within.  I 
could  empty  the  whole  of  my  own  soul  into  tlieirs. 
How  is  this  ? "  Duff's  answer  was  to  open  the  door 
into  the  large  hall  and  point  to  the  busy  scene,  to 
the  children  in  the  infant  gallery  lisping  the  Englisli 
alphabet.  "There,"  he  said,  "is  the  explanation. 
Well  do  I  remember  how  I  would  have  loathed  such 
employment,  not  only  as  insufferably  dull,  but  as 
beneath  the  dignity  of  the  clerical  office.  But  on 
coming  here  I  soon  found  that  this,  with  a  specific 
view  to  the  systematic  attainment  of  higher  ends,  was 
imperatively  demanded  as  auxiliary  to  the  ultimate 
renovation  of  India.  On  the  principle  of  becoming 
all  things  to  all  men  and  new  things  in  new  circum- 
stances, there  four  years  ago  did  I  teach  ABO. 
Pilloried  though  I  was  at  the  time,  in  the  scorn  of 
some,  the  pity  of  others,  and  the  wonder  of  all,  the 
work  was  persevered  in.  And  you  have  seen  some  of 
the  fruits.  The  processes  that  followed  the  alphabet- 
ical training  tended  in  a  gradual  and  piecemeal  way  to 
break  up  and  remove  that  very  crust  which  interposed 
an  impassable  barrier  between  your  instruction  and 
the  minds  of  your  auditors.  Was  it  not  worth  while 
to  begin  so  low  in  order  loend  so  high  ?  "  "  Indeed," 
replied  Groves,  "  this  throws  new  light  on  the  whole 
subject.  I  frankly  confess  I  left  England  an  avowed 
enemy  to  education  in  connection  with  missions ;  but 
I  now  tell  you  as  frankly  that  henceforth,  from  what 
I  have  seen  to-day,  I  am  its  friend  and  advocate." 

That  was  Duff's  last  day,  for  a  long  time,  in  his 
loved  Institution.  Even  then  the  agony  of  dysentery 
had  begun,  and  its  prostration,  more  terrible  mentally 
than  physically,  soon  followed.  A  generation  was  to 
pass  before  the  specific  of  ipecacuanha  was  to  be  used 
to  charm  away  the  bloody  flux  which  used  to  sweep 
off  thousands  of  our  white  soldiers.     Four  physicians 


Ait.  28.  ORDEBED    HOME.  269 

failed  to  heal  the  visibly  dying  missionary.     The  good 
Simon  Nicolson,  the  Abercrombie  of  Bengal,  liad  just 
been  succeeded  by  Dr.  now  Sir  Ranald  Martin,  him< 
self    now   followed    by    Sir   Joseph   Fayrer.     Ranald 
Martin  was  called  in,  pronounced  the  case  desp(3rate, 
but  asked  permission   to  try  an   experimental  remedy 
which  had  sava^d  one  or  two  of    his    patients.     TI10 
result  was  that,  after  a  long  and  profound  trance  as  it 
seemed  to  the  sufferer,  he  woke  up  to  consciousness,  to 
revival,  to  such  a  point  of  convalescence  that  he  could 
be  carried  on   board  the  first   Capo    ship    for  home. 
The  devoted  Groves  had   slept   beside    him  day  and 
niijht,  nursinnr  \i[m.  with  a  brotlier's  tenderness.     For 
he  was  not  the    only  invalid.     On  the  day  that  the 
stricken  family  were  laid  in  their  berths  in  the  John 
M\Lellanj  bound  for  Greenock,  with  Groves  as  their 
fellow-passenger,  a  son  was  born,  to  whom  the  name  of 
Groves,  as  well  as  his  father's  name  was  given.     From 
Mrs.  Duff's  letter  communicatii^g  the  departure  to  Dr. 
Chalmers  we  learn  that,  even  when  tlius  rescued  from 
the  very  gates    of    death,   the  ardent  missionary  im- 
plored the  doctors  to  send  him  on  a  brief  voyage  short 
of  Great  Britaii'       '  I  devoted  myself  to  the  Lord,"  he 
pleaded,  "  to  spend  and  be  spent  in  His  service  in  this 
land."     Ranald  Martin's    stern   reply    was  :  "  In  the 
last  nine  months  you  have  suffered  more  from  tropical 
disease  than  many  who  have  passed  their  lives  in  India. 
Let  not  a  day  be  lost."     As  the  Greenock  Indiaman 
dropped   down  the    Hooghly   his  boy    was    taken  to 
comfort   him.     But    he  would  have    been  still   more 
cheered  had  he  known  that  at  that  very  time,  in  July, 
1834,  his  old  friend,  David  Ewart,  was  being  ordained 
as  the  third  missionary  of  the  Church  of  Scotland  and 
would  soon  after  arrive  to  help  Mr.  W.  S.  Mackay. 

Thus    closed  the   first   five   years    since   Duff    had 
been  sent  forth  from  St.  George's,  with  the  charge  of 


270  LIFE   OP   DR.   DUFF.  1834. 

Thomas  Chalmers  ringing  in  his  ears,  ordained  to 
preach  the  gospel  in  India.  Thus  ended  the  first 
period  of  his  Indian  service  since  he  opened  his 
famous  Institution  in  the  great  Bengalee  thoroughfare 
of  Chitpore  road,  Calcutta.  Even  the  half-century 
which  has  passed  since  Inglis  planned  and  Chalmers 
preaclied  and  Duff  responded,  *'  Here  am  I,  send  me," 
enables  us  to  say  that  that  lustrum  is  entitled  to 
rank  with  the  most  memorable  eras  when  human 
progress  has  taken  a  new  start  to  the  enUghtening 
and  the  blessing  of  a  whole  continent.  As  the  mis- 
sionary is  borne  to  the  life-giving  breezes  of  ocean 
from  the  sweltering  pestilence  of  a  Bengal  July,  the 
precious  seed  he  has  been  sent  to  sow  is  germinating 
and  growing  up  night  and  day,  he  knoweth  not  how. 


CHAPTER   X. 

1835. 
THE    INVALID    AND    THE    OBATOB. 

Unwillingness  to  leave  India. — The  Voyage  Home. — The  Reform 
Election  and  Sir  Robert  Peel. — Welcome  from  Dr.  Chalmers. — 
Ignorance  of  the  Committee  after  death  of  Dr.  Inglis. — First 
Addresses. — Comes  to  an  understanding  with  the  Committee. — 
Confidential  Notes  on  the  Four  Converts. — Letter  from  Go- 
peenath  Nundi  to  his  spiritual  Father. — First  Campaign  in 
London. — Rev.  John  Macdonald. — Seized  with  his  old  fever  at 
Mr.  Joseph  Gurney's. — Letter  to  Ewart. — Expect  great  things. — 
General  Assembly  of  1835,  in  the  Tron  Kirk. — Duff  rises  from 
bed  to  make  his  first  speech. — The  Oration  described. — Extracts. 
— The  tremendous  effect. — Contemporary  Accounts. — Opposi- 
tion and  Discussion. — The  Orator  contrasted  with  the  models 
whom  he  studied. — India  and  India  for  Christ  as  the  theme  of 
eloquence. 

Having  successfully  founded  and  to  some  extent 
built  up  the  mission  in  Calcutta  and  Bengal,  Mr.  Duff 
is  summoned,  though  he  knows  it  not,  to  do  the 
equally  necessary  work  of  creating  a  living  missionary 
spirit  in  the  Church  at  home.  The  apparently  dying 
apostle  is  really  being  sent  on  that  parallel  or  alter- 
nating service  which  divided  his  whole  career  into 
two  indispensable  and  co-operating  sets  of  activities 
m  East  and  West.  Having  set  the  battle  in  array  in 
front,  and  fought  for  years  at  the  head  of  his  scanty 
forces,  he  had  then  to  leave  the  post  of  danger  to 
colleagues  of  his  own  spirit,  for  the  less  honourable 
but  not  less  necessary  duty  of  looking  to  his  reserves 
and  sending  forward  his  ammunition.  Thus  it  was 
that  he  became  at  once  the  missionary  worker,  the 


2  72  LIFE    OF    DR.    DUFF.  1834. 

unresting  civilizing  force  in  India,  and  the  missionary 
organizer,  the  unmatched  Christian  orator  and  preacher 
at  home.  He  led  two  lives,  and  in  each  his  splendid 
physique,  his  burning  enthusiasm,  his  divine  call  and 
support,  enabled  him  to  do  more  than  the  work  of 
many  men  together. 

Yet,  as  consciousness  returned  and  strength  began 
to  come  back,  it  was  natural  that  the  young  missionary 
should  long  to  be  left  at  his  post,  should  even  some- 
what murmuringly  marvel  why  he  had  been  taken 
away  in  the  hour  of  victory.  The  very  elements 
seemed  to  conspire  to  keep  him  in  Bengal.  The  John 
M'Lellan  could  not  breast  the  fury  of  the  south-west 
monsoon  in  a  Bengal  July,  her  decks  were  swept 
again  and  again  of  the  live  stock  laid  in  for  the  long 
voyage,  and  after  six  weeks'  tossing  she  had  to  put 
into  Madras  for  stores.  By  the  time  that  she  sighted 
South  Africa  Mr.  Duff  had  become  so  far  reconciled 
to  the  change  as  to  be  able  to  write  thus  to  Dr. 
Bryce : — "  The  very  thought  of  returning  home  at 
the  commencement  of  my  labours  and  infancy  of  the 
Assembly's  mission  would  have,  I  verily  believe,  broken 
my  heart,  were  it  not  that  God,  by  successive  afflic- 
tions, which  thrice  brought  me  to  the  verge  of  the 
grave,  disciplined  me  into  the  belief  and  conviction 
that  a  change  so  decided  was  absolutely  indispensable, 
and  that  to  resist  the  proposal  to  leave  Calcutta 
would  be  tantamount  to  a  resistance  of  the  will  of 
Providence.  I  shall  not  revert  to  the  pain  and  mental 
distress  at  first  experienced.  God  has,  I  trust,  over- 
ruled all  for  my  spiritual  improvement;  and  I  trust, 
moreover,  that  by  my  return  for  a  season  to  Scotland 
the  great  cause  may  be  effectually  furthered."  It  was 
during  this  otherwise  tedious  time  of  slow  convalescence 
that  he  seems  to  have  read  the  Bible  straight  through 
three  times.     Beginning  with  the  enthusiastic  convic- 


-Et.  28.  THE    FIRST    EEFORM    ACT.  273 

tion,  born  of  liis  own  success,  that  the  Church  in 
the  world  woukl  grndually  glide  into  a  millennium  of 
godliness,  this  comparative  and  repeated  study  brought 
him  to  the  conclusion  that  the  missionary  work  is 
merely  preparatory  to  the  great  outpouring  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  In  history,  as  in  the  prophets,  he  ever 
found  righteousness  and  peace  preceded  by  judg- 
ments. 

The  invalid  was  just  able  to  land  at  Cape  Town, 
and  with  tho  assistance  of  a  friendly  arm  walk  to 
church,  where  Dr.  Adamson,  his  host  five  years  be- 
fore, baptized  the  child  born  on  the  day  they  had  left 
Calcutta.  AVhen  the  ship  entered  the  Firth  of  Clyde 
it  was  Christmas-day.  The  sea  breezes  had  done  their 
best  for  five  months,  and  the  apparently  restored  mis- 
sionary rejoiced  in  the  strong  frost  which  greeted 
him  as  from  his  own  Grampians.  When  he  landed  at 
Greenock  he  found  the  whole  country  in  the  exuberant 
excitement  of  the  general  election  under  the  first  Reform 
Act,  which  had  extended  the  franchise  from  two  thou- 
sand electors  who  returned  all  the  Scottish  members 
of  Parliament  to  something  like  a  fairer  proportion. 
The  time  of  freedom  in  Church  as  well  as  State  had 
begun — the  conflicts  which  ended  in  the  disruption 
of  the  Kirk  and  the  abolition  of  the  Corn  Laws  ten 
or  twelve  years  after.  The  sight  of  election  hustings 
was  as  new  to  Scotland  as  it  was  to  Mr.  Duff.  Every- 
where he  heard  only  abuse  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington. 
In  Edinburgh  Lord  Campbell  talked  of  impeaching 
"  the  multifarious  minister "  who  for  the  hour  held 
eight  cabinet  offices,  till  it  was  said,  "  the  cabinet 
council  sits  in  his  head  and  the  ministers  are  all  of 
one  mind."  It  was  seen  in  time  that  the  Duke  was 
only  doing  his  duty  till  Sir  Robert  Peel  should  return 
from  Italy  and  form  the  new  ministry  which  first  put 
Mr.  Gladstone  in  office.     In  such  circumstances  who, 


274  ^^^^   OP  DB.    DUFF.  1835. 

in  kirk  or  public  meeting,  would  listen  to  the  talo 
of  a  triumph  so  remote  and  so  obscure  as  that  which 
Mr.  Duff  had  modestly  to  tell.  Yet  the  tale  was 
really  one  of  a  spiritual  revolution  affecting  millions, 
compared  with  which  the  Reform  Act,  the  policy  of 
Sir  Robert  Peel,  and  the  training  of  Mr.  Gladstone 
were  but  single  events  in  a  constitutional  series ! 
After  a  few  days  spent  in  Greenock  with  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Menzies,  formerly  librarian  of  St.  Andrews  University, 
and  in  Glasgow  with  his  old  fellow-student.  Dr. 
Lorimer,  for  both  of  whom  he  preached,  Mr.  Duff 
turned  his  face  towards  the  committee  in  Edinburgh. 
He  reached  the  capital  by  what  was  then  the  easiest 
and  quickest  means,  the  canal  track-boat.  Finding 
that  Mrs.  Duff's  mother  had  been  removed  by  death, 
he  and  his  family  settled  down  in  the  sea-bathing 
suburb  of  Portobello,  in  a  house  in  Pitt  Street  lent 
to  them  by  the  trustees  of  her  father's  estate. 

The  first  member  of  committee  and  personal  friend 
on  whom  Mr.  Duff  called  was  Dr.  Chalmeis,  then 
redeeming  the  fame  of  the  University  of  Edinburgh 
in  its  theological  faculty.  Most  courteous  and  even 
enthusiastic  was  the  greeting  of  the  greatest  Scotsman 
of  his  day,  who  added  to  all  his  other  gifts  that  large- 
hearted  friendliness  which  is  the  rule  of  his  countrymen 
scattered  abroad.  The  hour  sped  rapidly  in  a  fire  of 
question  and  answer  about  the  progress  of  the  mission 
and  the  state  of  things  in  India.  On  accompanying 
his  visitor  to  the  door  Dr.  Chalmers  demanded  of 
him,  "  Where  is  your  cloak  ?  "  "I  have  not  had  time 
to  get  any,"  was  the  reply.  "  That  will  never  do  in 
this  climate ;  it  is  now  very  frosty,  and  you  are  as 
thinly  clad  as  if  you  were  in  India :  let  me  not  see 
your  face  again  till  you  have  been  at  the  tailor's."  The 
young  missionary  was  already  an  old  Indian  in  this, 
that  the  fire  of  the  tropics  had  made  him  indifferent 


JEt.  29.  lONORANCE    OP  THE    COMMITTEE.  275 

to  his  first  wintep  in  Scotland,  after  wliicli  comes 
the  reaction  that  often  drives  the  sufferer  to  tlio  sun 
of  the  south. 

But  where  was  there  another  Chalmers  or  one 
worthy  of  him  at  that  time  in  Scotland  ?  Dr.  Inglis, 
the  founder  of  the  mission,  was  gone.  Dr.  Brunton 
had  not  then  been  appointed  his  permanent  successor. 
He  and  the  other  members  received  the  ardent  ad- 
vances of  the  astonished  Duff  with  a  polite  indifference, 
or  replied  with  congratulations  on  the  fact  that  so 
good  a  conservative  statesman  as  Sir  Robert  Peel  had 
been  placed  at  the  head  of  affairs,  as  if  to  save  and 
even  to  extend  the  Kirk  which  had  been  for  years 
furiously  assailed  by  the  Voluntaries.  More  than  once 
was  the  young  Highlander  stung  into  the  warning  that 
for  the  Kirk  to  trust  any  secular  statv.  ^man,  however 
respectable,  was  to  lean  on  a  broken  reed.  The  tran- 
scendent interests  of  a  great  spiritual  institution  like 
the  Church  of  Scotland,  he  said,  must  be  placed  only 
on  Christ  Himself,  its  living  Head.  There  was  one 
minister,  besides  Chalmers,  who  had  watched  the 
work  done  in  Bengal  and  had  genius  enough  to  appre- 
ciate it.  He  at  once  invited  Mr.  Duff  to  begin  his 
crusade  in  Falkirk.  That  was  John  Brown  Patterson, 
the  marvel  of  the  High  School  of  Edinburgh,  whom 
Pillans  took  with  him  to  the  University ;  the  student 
who  had  there  gained  the  hundred  pound  prize 
proposed  by  the  Government  commissioners  on  the 
universities  of  Scotland  for  the  best  essay  on  the 
character  of  the  Athenians — an  essay  which,  when 
published,  was  pronounced  unsurpassed  in  English 
literature  at  the  time,  for  its  learning  and  style.  The 
result  of  Duff's  preaching  in  Falkirk,  and  of  a  public 
meeting:  with  formal  resolutions  to  advance  the  Benojal 
mission,  was  not  only  a  collection  of  money  which 
surprised  all  in  that  day,  but  the  lighting  of  a  flame 


276  LIFE   OP   DR.   DUFF.  1835. 

which,  in  coming  days  and  years,  Duff  was  to  fan  and 
spread  till  it  covered  the  land,  and  fired  America  and 
many  other  parts  of  Christendom.  The  glad  report 
of  this,  made  formally  to  the  committee,  was  received 
with  respectful  silence.  Nor  was  the  bitterness  of  Mr. 
Duff's  heart  assuaged  till,  about  the  same  tinu  two 
theological  students  called  upon  him  for  information 
regarding  his  mission.  The  interview  gave  him  a 
new  confidence  for  the  future,  for  he  reasoned  that  if 
any  number  of  the  divinity  students  were  like  these, 
the  India  mission  would  never  lack  men  worthy  of 
it.  His  young  visitors  were  the  saintly  Murray 
M'Chcyno  and  he  who  is  still  Dr.  A.  N.  Somerville 
of  Glasgow. 

Somewhat  dubious  now  as  to  the  attitude  of  the 
committee,  Mr.  Duff  received,  with  hesitation,  the  next 
invitation  to  tell  the  public  of  his  work.  Dr.  A. 
Paterson,  who  had  been  driven  out  of  Russia  by  the 
intolerance  of  the  Czar  Nicholas,  asked  him  to  address 
half  a  dozen  godly  folks  who  met  once  a  month  in  the 
Edinburgh  house  of  Mr.  Campbell,  of  Carbrook,  for 
prayer  for  foreign  missions.  On  finding  the  drawing- 
room  crowded  by  a  large  audience  he  remonstrated, 
and  refused  to  remain.  But  explanation  showed  that 
no  endeavour  had  been  made  to  summon  the  audience, 
whom  he  therefore  consented  to  address.  The  result 
was,  such  an  impression  in  many  circles  outside  as 
well  as  in  the  Kirk,  that  an  English  visitor  who  had 
been  present  rode  down  to  Portobello  next  morning 
to  make  a  large  donation  to  the  mission,  and  Mr.  Duff 
was  formally  summoned,  for  the  first  time,  to  meet 
the  committee  in  the  rooms  in  the  University  which 
Dr.  Brunton  occupied  as  librarian.  Mrrvelling  what 
the  sudden  cause  could  be,  but  delighted  that  at  last 
he  would  have  an  opportunity  of  giving  an  account  of 
his  stewardship,  Mr.  Duff  hurried  to  the  spot  with 


iEt.  29.  FIGHTING   THE    COMMITTEE.  2/7 

that  punctuality  for  which,  like  all  successfully  busy 
men,  he  was  over  remarkable. 

It  was  thus  he  used  to  tell  the  story : — Entering 
the  room  he  found  that  nearly  all  the  members  of 
committee  were  present.  After  prayer  the  acting 
convener  rose,  and  standing  in  the  middle  of  the  floor, 
in  substance  spoke  as  follows : — He  had  thought  it 
right  to  summon  a  meeting  to  settle  and  determine 
the  case  of  Mr.  Duff,  who,  in  these  days  of  agitation, 
turmoil,  and  revolutionary  tendencies  and  irregulari- 
ties of  every  description,  had  taken  it  upon  him  to 
hold  not  exactly  a  public,  but  at  the  same  time  a 
very  large  meeting  in  the  house  of  Mr.  Campbell,  of 
Carbrook,  with  the  view  of  addressing  it  on  the  sub- 
ject of  missions.  Now  he  regarded  this  as  a  very  l  i- 
warrantable  and  irregular  proceeding.  Mr.  Duff  h{„d 
given  him  no  intimation  of  his  intention  to  hold  such 
a  meeting,  nor  had  he  any  means  of  knowing  what 
might  be  the  leading  subject  of  the  address.  He 
thought  it  therefore  right  to  consult  his  colleagues, 
to  induce  them  to  lay  down  rules  to  regulate  Mr. 
Duff's  proceedings  on  such  matters  in  future,  as  it 
would  never  do,  in  unsettled  times  like  these,  to  allow 
the  agent  of  a  responsible  committee  to  adopt  what 
measures  he  chose. 

Immediately  Mr.  Duff  stood  up,  and  taking  pos- 
session of  the  middle  of  the  floor,  respectfully  ad- 
mitted that  he  was  the  agent  of  the  committee,  but  of  a 
committee  guided  by  moral  and  spiritual  influences  and 
considerations.  While  in  one  respect  therefore  he  was 
their  agent,  in  another  respect  he  must  be  considered 
on  a  footing  of  religious  co-equality,  co-responsibility 
with  themselves ;  but  not  to  insist  further  on  this,  he 
would  soon  bring  the  matter  to  a  decisive  'ssue.  When 
he  went  to  India  originally  he  declared  that  he  would 
not  go  if  hampered  by  any  conditions  which  his  own 


278  LIFE   OF  DE.    DUFF.  1835. 

conscience  did  not  approve;  that,  entering  upon  an 
entirely  new  field,  full  discretion  must  be  allowed  him 
within  the  limits  of  reason  and  sobriety  to  follow  what 
courses  he  might  deem  most  effective  for  the  ends 
which  the  committee  and  himself  had  alike  in  common. 
This  reasonable  concession  was  at  once  cheerfully 
yielded  by  Dr.  Inglis  and  his  committee;  and  now 
when  he,  Mr.  Duff,  had  returned,  after  several  years  of 
multiplied  experiences,  he  thought  that  full  discretion 
should  be  allowed  him  to  adopt  what  course  might 
seem  best  for  awakening  an  interest  in  the  Church's 
mission,  so  long  as  he  was  ready  to  take  any  coun- 
sel or  advice  which  the  home  experiences  of  members 
of  committee  friendly  to  missions  might  suggest. 
He  then  explained  how  the  recent  meeting  had 
not  originated  with  him;  though  when  he  came  to 
understand  it  he  fully  approved  of  it,  and  thought 
that  the  successful  result  sufficiently  proved  its  provi- 
dential legitimacy.  Of  course,  if  the  committee  had 
any  work  for  him  to  do  of  any  kind  anywhere,  he 
would  at  once  relinquish  all  other  duty  for  the  sake 
of  taking  up  that;  but  beyond  this  he  could  not 
possibly  go.  He  was  an  ordained  minister  of  the 
gospel,  and  therefore  supposed  to  be  endowed  with 
ordinary  ministerial  gifts,  graces  and  attainments. 
He  was  in  all  respects  therefore  the  free-man  of  the 
Lord ;  free  to  carry  out  whatever  his  blessed  Master 
might  indicate  as  His  most  gracious  will.  That 
liberty  he  would  not  and  could  not  for  ten  thousand 
worlds  relinquish.  The  decisive  issue,  therefore,  came 
to  be  this :  if  the  committee  resolved,  as  they  had  a 
perfect  right  to  do,  to  draw  up  some  peremptory 
instructions  to  regulate  Mr.  Duff's  proceedings  in 
purely  spiritual,  ministerial,  and  missionary  matters, 
he  must  at  once  write  out  his  resignation  as  their 
agent.     If  on  reconsideration  they  came  to  the  con- 


iEt.  29.  CONQUERING  THE   COMMITTEE.  279 

elusion  that  it  was  better  to  allow  things  to  remain 
as  they  were,  and  grant  him  full  liberty  of  action 
within  the  reasonable  limits  stated  by  himself,  he 
would  rejoice  in  continuing  as  their  agent,  and  do 
what  he  possibly  could  to  create  a  deeper  interest  in 
the  mission  throughout  the  bounds  of  the  Church, 
and  thereby  help  to  increase  the  funds  and  the  number 
of  agents  to  be  sent  abroad.  For  the  people  being 
profoundly  ignorant  of  tue  whole  subject,  their  being 
wakened  to  take  a  deeper  interest  in  so  spiritual  a 
work  as  the  evangelisation  of  the  wo^ld  would  not 
only  be  carrj^ing  out  more  fully  the  last  great  com- 
mission of  our  blessed  Saviour,  but  also  tend  in 
many  remarkable  ways  spiritually  to  benefit  their  own 
souls.     Having  so  spoken  he  sat  down. 

Instantly,  all  present,  without  any  one  of  them 
uttering  a  single  word,  went  out  precipitately,  leaving 
Mr.  Duff  and  the  convener  alone  in  the  middle  of 
the  floor  to  look  at  each  other  in  a  sort  of  dumb 
amazement.  "  Probably,"  said  the  former  with  great 
calmness,  "we  have  had  enough  of  the  subject  for 
this  day." 

So,  on  that  memorable  occasion,  the  uncompromis- 
ing devotion  to  duty  of  the  young  missionary  proved 
to  be  more  powerful  than  all  tact  or  ecclesiastical 
finesse,  as  it  had  done  in  more  difficult  circumstances 
among  the  Bengalees.  Dr.  Inglis  was  gone.  The 
country  and  the  Church  knew  nothing  of  the  Bengal 
mission  save  from  the  meagre  report  printed  once  a 
year  for  a  General  Assembly  which  had  not  then 
become  a  popular  parliament.  The  unhappy  commit- 
tee wanted  only  a  head  to  lead  them.  Dr.  Brunton 
woke  up  to  the  new  duties  which  his  rare  courtesy 
always  afterwards  sought  to  discharge  with  kind- 
liness. Had  he  referred  to  the  scanty  records 
of   which    he   took   charge   on   appointment    to  his 


28o  LIFE   OP   DR.    DUFF.  1835. 

office,  he  would  have  found  an  official  communica- 
tion, written  by  Mr.  Duff  as  he  sailed  up  the  Clyde, 
and  thus  concluding  : — "  Why  is  it  tliat  the  Lord 
was  pleased  so  to  reduce  me  to  the  verge  of  exist- 
ence that  I  left  the  field  of  labour  in  that  all  but 
desperate  condition  of  a  dying  man,  and  has  since 
been  pleased  so  wonderfully  to  bless  the  voyage  to 
me  that  by  the  time  I  have  reached  my  native 
shores  I  feel  enabled  to  encounter  any  reasonable 
share  of  bodily  exertion  ?  Surely  it  may  be,  or  rather 
must  be,  th?t  the  Father  of  spirits  has  something 
or  other  to  do  with  me,  in  pioraoting  in  this  land 
the  glorious  cause — e"en  the  glorious  cause  of  the 
Redeemer  to  which  my  heart  and  soul  and  life  are 
exclusively  devoted.  Oh,  may  God  grant  that  wise 
thoughts  may  be  put  into  our  minds,  so  that  when 
we  meet,  measures  may  be  devised  for  the  occupa- 
tion of  my  time  while  I  remain  in  Scotland  which 
He  Himself  will  abundantly  bless  for  the  promotion 
of  His  own  glory  in  connection  with  the  Assembly's 
mission  to  the  perishing  heathen." 

After  Falkirk  the  next  call  came  from  Dr.  "Wilson  of 
Irvine.  Dundee  followed,  led  thereto  by  a  visit  which 
Mr.  Duff  had  paid  to  all  its  ministers  on  his  way  north 
to  Moulin  to  visit  his  father  and  mother.  Meanwhile 
his  official  and  private  correspondence  shows  how 
necessarily  active  he  was  in  educating  the  new  con- 
vener and  committee  in  the  progress  of  the  mission, 
much  of  the  history  of  which  had  passed  away  with 
Dr.  Inglis.  A  letter  from  the  Eev.  W.  S.  Mackay 
on  the  work  in  Bengal  called  fgrth  these  •*  running 
notes  "  on  the  converts  : — 

"  March  20th,  1835. 
"If  these  had  not   been  so  specially  referred  to  by  Mr. 
Mackay  I  should  be  silent.     Many  in  Calcutta  know,  and  none 
more  than  my  dear  colleague,  how  much  I  was  called  on  to 


JEt.  29.  WHY  TWO  CONVERTS  JOINED  THE  ENGLISH  CHURCH.  28 1 

do  for  these,  and  how  much  to  bear  from  them  during  tho 
time  of  their  infidelity  and  the  progress  of  their  inquiries  after 
truth ;  God  only  is  witness  of  all  I  had  to  do  and  endure, 
hew  I  had  to  toil  and  struggle  and  travail  in  soul  for  them. 
It  may  easily  be  imagined  then  how  peculiar  must  my  feelings 
towards  them  be.  When  the  two  first  joined  the  English 
Church  I  was  not  much  surprised,  owing  to  the  very  satis- 
factory reasons  stated  by  Mr.  Mackay.  And  if  the  ground  of 
their  reasons  had  not  been  removed  (as  it  happily  now  is),  I 
should  not  have  expected  any  talented  young  man  who  burned 
with  zeal  to  be  employed  in  arousing  his  countrymen,  to  re- 
main with  us — indeed  I  could  not  ask  any.  If  the  Church  of 
England  offered  to  ordain  and  support  them  as  missionaries, 
and  we  could  not,  then  for  the  good  of  India  would  I  say, 
'  rather  than  remain  unemployed,  or  betake  yourselves  exclu- 
sively to  secular  professions,  by  all  means  join  the  Church  of 
England  or  any  other  Church  of  Christ  that  will  engage  to 
send  you  forth  as  effective  labourers  into  the  missionary 
field.' 

"While  therefore  I  did  not  feel  surprised  at  the  two  first 
converts  separating  themselves  from  me,  I  do  confess  that 
there  was  an  apparent  want  of  consideration  to  my  feelings  in 
the  mode  of  tho  separation.  But  while  others  blamed  them 
for  the  act  as  well  as  the  mode,  and  charged  them  with  in- 
gratitude, I  really  could  not  blame  them  so  much  as  their 
instigators  and  advisers.  They  did  not  consult  me,  as  I  think 
they  were  in  gratitude  bound  to  do.  Tho  former  were  young 
and  inexperienced  ;  the  latter,  I  fear,  were  actuated  more  by 
the  spirit  of  proselyting  to  a  party  than  by  the  love  of  Chi'ist 
and  the  love  of  the  brethren  :  the  latter  therefore,  in  my 
estimation,  must  bear  the  main  burden  of  the  blame,  if  blame 
there  be.  My  mind  is  satisfied,  aye  my  very  soul  kindles  into 
joy  at  the  thought  that  these  my  spiritual  children  continue 
steadfast  in  the  faith,  full  of  zeal  for  their  Master,  and  con- 
scientiously endeavour  to  serve  Him.  This  noble  testimony 
from  my  dear  colleague  is  to  me  glad  tidings  indeed,  for  though 
in  a  measure  separated  in  time,  we  may  yet  rejoice  together, 
and  rejoice  over  the  fruits  of  our  separate  labours,  in  tho 
realms  of  bliss. 

"  The  obvious  remedy  for  such  defections  from  our  Church, 
though  not  from  tho  Church  of  Christ,  is  (1)  the  power  of  ordain- 


282  LIFE   OP   DE.   DUFF.  1835. 

ing  and  supporting  qualified  labourers :  (2)  The  supporting 
promising  young  men,  when  cast  oflf  by  their  friends  o.. 
account  of  their  specially  devoting  themselves  to  the  work  of 
preparation  for  the  Christian  ministry  :  (3)  The  erection  of  a 
higher  institution  for  the  communication  of  the  more  advanced 
branches  of  knowledge,  literary,  scientific  and  theological. 
The  first  of  theae  is  now  granted ;  the  two  last  are  yet  want- 
ing, and  till  these  bo  granted  too  it  is  utterly  impossible  for 
the  Assembly's  missionaries  in  India  to  be  responsible  for  the 
continued  adherence  of  well-educated  pious  young  men  to  the 
communion  of  the  Church  of  Scotland. 

*' Nothing  would  pain  me  more  than  that  I  should  be  thought 
to  have  formed  too  high  an  estimate  of  the  character  of  these 
young  men,  and  have  led  others  to  do  so.  I  conscientiously 
believe  that  I  have  understated  rather  than  overrated  that 
character  as  a  whole,  and  that  many  Christians  in  Calcutta 
would  give  a  far  more  flaming  account  than  I  have  ever  done 
or  ever  will  do.  I  simply  stated  a  few  clear  and  notorious  facts ; 
I  might  have  stated  more,  and  drawn  more  glowing  inferences, 
but  purposely  refrained  from  doing  so.  God  knows  that 
under  the  most  powerful  temptations  to  write  strongly  I  have 
often  written  in  modified  terms,  and  often  not  at  all.  I  always 
shrink  instinctively  I'rom  raising  expectations  that  could  not 
be  realized,  and  if  I  do  not  greatly  mistake,  I  think  the 
whole  tenor  of  my  communications  with  the  committee  for  the 
last  five  years  bears  me  out  in  this  assertion. 

''  In  the  case  of  the  first  two  that  were  baptized,  if  they  did 
not  consult  me,  as  they  should  have  done,  it  was  a  matter 
altogether  personal  to  myself,  and  no  one  perhaps  could  feel 
for  them  as  I  did,  or  make  for  them,  in  the  peculiar  circum- 
stances of  their  situation,  the  same  allowances.  And  seeing 
that  the  matter  was  personal  to  myself,  and  that  I  had  long 
forgiven  them  before  God,  and  that  in  all  other  respects,  so 
far  as  I  could  observe,  they  continued  to  walk  worthy  of  their 
high  calling,  yea,  to  labour  without  ceasing  in  their  Master's 
service,  I  could  not  feel  myself  for  a  moment  justified  in  the 
attempt  to  lower  their  general  high  character  or  impede  their 
usefulness  by  dwelling  on  circumstances  to  me  of  so  personal 
a  nature.  And  as  the  matter  is  so  very  liable  to  misconstruc- 
tion on  the  part  of  those  who  must  ever  be  more  or  less  un- 
acquainted with  the  peculiarities  of  the  position  of  these  young 


iEt.  29.  WHY   TWO   CONVEETS   JOINED   OTHEE    MISSIONS.     2S3 

man,  and  so  apt  therefore  to  do  injury  to  our  cause,  I  would 
beg  the  committee  never  to  refer  to  the  topic  of  '  ingratitude ' 
towarila  me.  Let  the  causes  of  separation  from  us  be  freoly 
and  fully  stated,  if  any  questions  bo  put,  and  stated  too  in  order 
to  rouse  our  brethren  to  put  us  speedily  in  possession  of  the 
remedy  against  future  defer  ions. 

"  When  Gopeenath  Nundi  was  appointed  at  my  own  recom- 
mendation to  the  school  at  Fuctehpore,  it  was  not  in  connection 
with  any  society.  The  surgeon  or  the  station,  in  his  applica- 
tion to  mo,  expressly  stated  that  the  school  was  founded  and 
would  be  supported  by  the  British  residents  of  the  place.  Its 
being  taken  under  the  patronage  of  the  Church  of  England 
Missionary  Society  was  altogether  a  subsequent  event.  We 
could  not  obviate  this,  as  we  had  no  disposable  funds  to  offer 
which  might  secure  the  permanency  of  the  institution. 

"In  June  or  July,  1833,  Archdeacon  Corric  was  about  to 
proceed  to  the  upper  provinces  on  his  ministerial  visitation. 
This  was  thought  a  favourable  opportunity  for  Gopee,  as  the 
Archdeacon  kindly  offered  to  take  him  along  with  himself.  On 
his  return  to  Calcutta  the  Archdeacon  spoke  of  Gopeo  in  the 
very  highest  terms,  and  so  also  did  Messrs.  Hill  and  Paterson, 
missionaries  of  the  London  Missionary  Society  at  Berhampore, 
and  others  whom  Gopee  had  visited  in  his  passage  up  the  river. 
From  himself  I  have  never  had  the  slightest  intimation  of  an 
intention  to  join  the  English  Church,  though  for  my  own 
part  I  scarcely  see  how  he  can  avoid  it.  He  is,  I  presume, 
supported  to  a  certain  extent  (though  I  never  heard  any  par- 
ticulars) by  the  Church  of  England  Missionary  Society.  Out 
of  Calcutta  (thanks  to  the  supineuess  of  our  Church  and  her 
friends)  he  cannot  enjoy  the  benefit  of  Christian  ordinances 
but  in  connection  with  the  Church  of  England.  How  in  these 
circumstances  Gopee  can  avoid  joining  the  Church  of  England 
I  cannot  well  see.  Mr.  Mackay  states  that  he  still  retains  his 
afi*ection  for  me ;  I  am  rejoiced  to  hear  it,  for  it  did  appear 
to  me  strong  as  death. 

"  Anundo's  case  is  of  course  under  consideration." 


Gopeeiiatli  was  afterwards  ordained  by  the  Ameri- 
can Presbyterian  Church.  Anundo  had  been  induced 
by  Mr.  Groves  to  accompany  him  to  England,  in  the 


284  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1835. 

same  ship  with  Mr.  Duff.  On  his  return  to  India  he 
became  a  catechist  of  the  London  Missionary  Society, 
and  died  in  1841.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  motives 
which  actuated  those  who  induced  Duff's  first  two 
converts  to  leave  their  spiritual  father,  all  must  re- 
joice in  the  fine  catholicity,  in  the  rare  self-abnegation 
v/hich  marked  his  own  acti  n  and  have  ever  since 
made  his  college  the  nursery  of  evangelists  for  all  the 
Protes[.ant  agencies  of  Northern  and  Eastern  India. 
He  at  least  never  grudged  the  Church  of  God  what  his 
own  committee  were  unwilling  or  unable  to  utilize. 
And  in  letters  such  as  this  from  Gopeenath  Nundi, 
as  well  as  in  the  continued  reports  of  Mr.  Mackay 
and  Mr.  Ewart  regarding  others,  he  found  a  solace 
and  a  joy  of  the  rarest  kind.  Two  years  after  his 
baptism  Gopeenath  thus  concluded  a  long  letter  to 
Mr.  Duff,  from  Futtehpore,  beyond  Allahabad,  where 
in  the  Mutiny  of  1857  he  was  to  witness  a  good  con- 
fession, having  been,  as  he  here  desired,  "  kept  faithful 
unto  death  ": — 

"After  I  was  separated  from  you  in  July,  1833,  I  was 
almost  thrown  alone  into  the  world.  Often  I  was  tempted  to 
be  hopeless,  and  felt  the  need  of  your  society.  When  I  feel 
my  lonesomeness,  or  want  of  a  friend  to  open  my  heart  to,  I  go 
to  Him  who  is  ever  kind  to  me,  and  disclose  my  secrets.  He 
is  the  only  searcher  of  ail  those  that  are  lost.  He  is  the  only 
friend  of  all  the  broken-hearted.  He  is  the  true  leader,  who 
leads  out  of  the  world  and  temptation,  particularly  to  the 
new  and  inexperienced.  Jesus  is  sweet  unto  all  those  that  call 
upon  Him  in  faith.  Did  He  not  promise  that  He  shall  be  with 
me  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world — then  what  fear  ?  '  Let 
your  loins  be  girded  about,  and  your  lights  burning  ! '  Such 
are  my  expressions  in  the  hour  of  temptation.  Oh  what  a 
comfort  to  have  Christ  always,  and  have  fellowship  with  Him  I 
Is  it  not  a  great  blessing  to  have  Christ,  a  friend,  a  companion, 
and  a  conductor  in  all  things  ?  Then  let  these  lines  be  my  con- 
tinuul  expression :— 


./Et.  39.  THE   BROTHERHOOD   IN   CHRIST.  285 

*  If  on  my  face,  for  Thy  dear  Name, 
Shame  and  reproaches  be  ; 
All  hail  reproach,  and  welcome  shame, 
If  Thou  remember  mo.' 


"I 


Oh  what  a  groat,  mistake  of  them  that  are  still  wandering, 
not  knowing  where  to  harbour  at !  Did  not  our  Lord  pro- 
nounce peace  on  all  that  are  Hi  '  Peace  I  leave  with  you, 
My  peace  I  give  unto  you,  not  as  the  world  giveth,  give  I  unto 
you  :  let  not  your  heart  be  troubled,  neither  let  it  bo  afraid.' 
Is  this  peace  pronounced  not  for  all  ?  I  aay  it  is  for  all, 
whoever  he  may  be,  whatever  nation  or  country  he  belongeth 
to ;  so  I  am  sure  His  peace  resteth  on  me  so  long  as  I  have 
sufficient  faith,  even  unto  the  end  of  my  life. 

"Although  we  are  separated  by  sight,  still  our  hearts  are 
combined  in  the  Lord.  As  for  my  part,  I  find  that  the  hearts 
which  are  once  in  the  fellowship  of  Jesus  cannot  on  any 
account  be  separated,  neither  by  time  nor  by  distance.  Wo 
are  merely  separated  by  earthly  boundaries ;  but  our  Christian 
love  grows  stronger  and  stronger  as  the  day  of  salvation  ap- 
proaches. Only  a  few  thousand  miles  are  between  you  and 
me;  but  I  have  you  always  in  my  heart,  and  make  mention  of 
you  in  my  prayers :  you  are  scarcely  gone  out  of  my  sight. 
But  oh,  remember  me  sometimes  in  your  prayers.  Pray  not 
only  for  my  sinful  soul,  that  I  may  be  kept  faithful  unto  death, 
but  also,  and  especially,  for  the  souls  of  the  poor  heathens 
around  me,  that  they  may  soon  be  freed  from  the  chains  of 
Satan  and  be  blessed  in  the  name  of  Jesus.  Whether  I  live 
or  die,  let  Christ  be  glorified  by  the  .ngathering  of  sinners  to 
Him.  I  have  many  more  trials  and  temptations  yet  to  meet ; 
but  oh,  may  I  cut  short  all  of  them  through  Him  who  is  ever 
gracious  to  me.  Those  days  are  gone  by  when  we  used  to 
converse  on  religious  topics ;  more  especially  on  Christ's  con- 
descension to  save  poor  sinners.  But  we  have  a  sure  hope, 
that  they  will  be  renewed  in  a  better  place,  and  at  a  better 
time,  when  we  come  to  dwell  in  the  mansions  of  our  heavenly 
Father.  Oh  may  we  soon  come  to  that  place,  and  greet  each 
other  with  a  brotherly  embrace, — singing  praises  to  the  Father, 
Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  for  ever  and  ever.  Amen.  Yours 
affectionately,  "  Gopeenath  Nundi." 

"These  lines,"  wrote  Duff  when  publishing  them 


286  LIFE   OP  DB.    DUFF.  1835 

long  after,  **  in  their  toucliing  simplicity  require  no 
comment.  It  surely  is  not  possible  for  any  e.\poricnco(l 
Christian  to  peruse  them  without  being  sensible  that 
ho  is  holding  converse  with  a  mind  not  only  generi- 
cally  but  specifically  the  same  as  his  own ;  that  he  is 
in  union  and  communion  with  a  perfectly  congenial 
spirit — a  spirit  new-moulded  and  fashioned  after 
the  similitude  of  Christ — a  spirit  whose  heavenward 
breathings  would,  with  talismanic  effect,  mark  out  its 
possessor  from  amidst  the  countless  throng  of  his 
turbaned  countrymen  as  belonging  to  the  spiritual 
confederacy  and  brotherhood  of  the  foithful." 

In  April,  1835,  after  making  the  amcmlG  honorable^ 
the  convener  submitted  to  Mr.  Duff  a  letter  from  the 
clerk  of  the  Presbytery  of  London,  expressing  pro- 
found interest  in  the  India  mission  of  the  established 
Church  of  Scotland,  and  inviting  the  missionary  to 
preach  to  and  address  each  of  the  congregations, 
which  were  ready  to  begin  a  system  of  contributions 
for  the  good  cause.  There  was  only  one  dissentient 
in  the  Presbytery,  as  it  proved,  and  that  solely  from 
ignorance.  He  was  the  Rev.  John  Macdonald,  who, 
when  he  heard  the  good  news  of  God  from  Bengal  and 
understood  how  an  educational  agency  like  Duff's  was 
the  most  evangelistic  of  all  as  directed  to  cultured 
Hindoos,  gave  himself  to  the  same  service,  resigning 
his  London  charge  for  the  Calcutta  mission.  Having 
accomplished  his  congenial  task,  Mr.  Duff  happened  to 
be  breakfasting  with  Mr.  Joseph  Gurney,  the  Christian 
philanthropist  who  superintended  the  system  of  short- 
hand reporting  in  the  House  of  Lords.  The  mis- 
sionary was  about  to  set  out  for  the  final  meeting  of 
representatives  of  all  the  congregations,  when,  as  he 
lifted  a  cup  of  coffee  to  his  lips,  he  was  seized  with 
the  violent  shivering  which  marked  the  return  of  his 
old  fever.     He  was  nursed  in  Alderman  Pirie's  house 


ALi.  29.  LETTER   TO   DAVID   EVVAllT.  287 

for  three  weeks,  and  insisted  on  returning  to  Edin- 
burgh for  the  Gcncrul  Assembly,  which  he  reached 
by  steamer  apparently  a  wasted  skeleton. 


"London,  Camderwell,  20th  May,  1835. 

"  My  Dear  Ewart, — I  need  not  say  how  rejoiced  I 
was  when  I  heard  of  the  step  you  had  taken.  May 
the  God  of  grace  strengthen  and  uphold  you  :  may  He 
pour  upon  you  of  the  richest  effusions  of  His  grace  : 
and  may  Ho  render  your  labour  effectual  in  advancing 
the  Redeemer's  kingdom  in  the  benighted  land  of 
your  adoption.  By  this  time  you  will  have  become 
acquainted  with  the  state  of  things  in  Calcutta.  It  is 
needless  therefore  for  me  to  refer  to  it.  The  pushing 
on  of  the  advantages  already  gained  in  our  Institution 
is  a  matter  of  paramount  importance.  The  raising  up 
of  a  class  of  native  teachers  and  preachers  from  our 
Institution  is  the  only  thing  that  will  meet  the  de- 
mands of  India,  the  only  thing  that  will  reconcile  the 
people  at  home  to  our  proceedings.  Therefore  every 
nerve  should  be  strained  towards  the  accomplishment 
of  this  end.  The  day  that  the  presbyterial  board  of 
Calcutta  shall  ordain  one  of  our  young  men  for  the 
work  of  the  ministry  will  be  a  glorious  day  for  India 
and  for  our  cause.  Such  an  event  would  do  more  than 
anything  else  in  the  way  of  arousing  our  countrymen 
at  home.  When  ordained,  of  course  the  young  mis- 
sionary should  be  employed  in  or  near  Calcutta,  within 
reach  of  superintendence  and  direction. 

*'  I  came  to  London  about  a  month  ago,  and  have 
preached  or  delivered  addresses  in  all  our  Scotch 
churches  here.  All  of  them  have  now  formed,  or  are 
about  to  form,  congregational  associations  in  support 
of  our  cause.  I  was  to  have  spoken  at  some  of  the 
great  anniversary  meetings  held  here  in  May  ;  but  on 


288  LIFE    OP   DR.    DUFF.  1835. 

Siiturday,  tlio  2 ad  of  May,  I  was  seized  with  a  severe 
attack  of  my  old  friend,  or  enemy,  tlie  Bengal  inter- 
mittent fever,  wliicli  has  up  to  this  date  confined 
me  to  the  house  I  am  now  through  God's  blessing 
nearly  recovered;  but  the  consequence  has  been  that 
for  the  present  the  finest  opportunities  for  making 
our  cause  extensively  known  in  this  great  metropolis 
have  been  lost.  It  docs  look  mysterious,  but  no 
doubt  we  shall  yet  find  that  God  has  ordered  it  for 
the  best. 

"  While  I  have  been  advocating  the  claims  of  our 
mission  generally,  and  the  necessity  of  increasing 
prayerfulness  and  increasing  contributions,  I  have 
not  forgotten  the  special  calls  for  more  suitable 
accommodation  for  our  Institution,  for  an  extensive 
library,  apparatus,  etc.  Things  are  progressing  to- 
wards something  efi*ectual  being  done  in  these  respects. 
I  have  now  just  attended  a  general  meeting  of  the 
Religious  Tract  and  Book  Society,  and  pled  in  behalf 
of  our  Institution.  The  committee  have  accordingly 
unanimously  voted  a  grant  of  all  their  publications, 
amounting  in  value  to  about  £30.  My  affectionate 
regards  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Mackay,  Dr.  Bryce,  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Charles,  the  members  of  session,  brother 
missionaries,  etc.      Yours  affectionately, 

**  Alexandee  DuFr  " 

Duff  had  now  a  work  to  do,  and  to  do  at  once,  com- 
pared with  which  his  crusade  in  Bengal  had  been 
pleasant.  The  opposition  there  was  what  he  had 
counted  on ;  it  had  inspirited  him  with  eagerness  for 
the  battle,  and  he  had  been  successful.  In  his  own  land 
he  had  had  just  experience  enough  to  sound  the  depth 
of  ignorance,  and  consequent  indifference  to  India 
and  the  state  of  its  people.  The  few  who  were  of 
the  spirit  of  Dr.  Inglis,  removed  by  death;   Simeon, 


JEt.  29.  **  EXPECT   OBEAT  THINGS."  289 

near  his  end;  Dr.  Lovo,  removed  to  Glasgow  after 
founding  the  London  Missionary  Society ;  John 
Foster,  Charles  Grant  and  Wilberforco,  gathered 
round  the  societies,  leaving  Churches,  as  such,  colder 
than  before.  Irvine  and  Falliirk  were  exceptions 
in  the  presbyteries  of  his  own  Kirk ;  even  the  Lon- 
don Scotsmen  were  represented  as  more  desirous  to 
wipe  off  the  reproach  of  Unitarianism  by  inviting 
him  to  their  midst  than  to  advance  foreign  missions. 
We  have  seen  what  his  own  committee,  on  the  removal 
of  Dr.  Inglis,  knew  of  his  drings,  and  how  little  they 
understood  the  magnitude  of  his  aims.  Just  ten  years 
had  passed  since  the  General  Assembly  had  been  induced 
with  difficulty  to  invite  a  general  collection  for  the  pro- 
posed Indian  Mission,  by  the  assurance,  prominently 
pubHshed,  that  it  was  "  not  to  bo  repeated,"  yet  not 
fifty  out  of  its  thousand  churches  made  any  response. 
Dr.  Inglis  was  so  delighted  by  the  consent  of  the 
Presbytery  of  Edinburgh  to  mak?  an  annual  collection, 
even  in  1831,  that  he  announced  it  to  Duff  as  a  tri- 
umph, and  declared  he  would  now  fix  the  maximum 
revenue  for  the  mission  at  £1,200  a  year.  From  the 
front  of  the  battle,  in  all  its  heat  and  vastness,  the  mis- 
sionary had  replied,  "  Not  £1,200  but  £12,000,  and  do 
not  stop  at  that."  How  had  that  reply  been  received  ? 
When,  before  the  Assembly  of  1835,  Duff  was  reading 
up  the  meagre  records  of  the  committee,  he  found  that 
a  leading  member  had  written  on  the  margin  of  that 
reply,  *'  Is  the  man  mad  ?  Has  the  Indian  sun  turned 
his  head  ?  "  When  he  pointed  out  the  query,  its  writer, 
now  himself  convener,  tore  it  off  and  threw  it  into  the 
fire,  exclaiming,  "  No  more  will  be  heard  on  that  sub- 
ject." But,  in  high  and  low,  this  was  the  want  of  know- 
ledge and  of  faith  which  the  first  Scottish  missionary 
who  had  returned  from  India  was  called  to  meet.  And 
the   return  of  the  old  fever  of  the  rice    'r  ?."nps   of 


290  LIFE   OP   DR.    DUFF.  T835. 

Bengal,  following  his  London  campaign,  liad  made 
liira  once  more  a  gaunt  invalid. 

Physicians  and  friends  tried  to  dissuade  him,  and 
the  list  of  business  that  yeai,  which  followed  the 
ecclesiastical  reforms  of  1834,  was  so  large  that  it  was 
doubtful  if  time  would  be  found  for  even  the  India 
Mission.  What  was  all  the  administration  of  Lord 
William  Bentinck,  or  all  the  codes  and  the  essays  of 
Macaulay,  to  a  general  election  ?  what  the  evangeliza- 
tion of  Bengal  to  the  presbyters  of  Auchterarder  ? 
But  Duff  knew  that  this  was  his  time ;  that  if  he  died 
he  must  yet  deliver  his  soul  and  tell  his  tale.  He  could 
have  no  prosperous  mission  in  India  without  Scotland, 
and  every  Scottish  man,  woman  and  child  could  be 
reached  best  through  the  reports  of  the  General  Assem- 
bly, which  the  reforms  of  1834  had  made  the  most 
popular  of  parliaments. 

Casting  himself  on  the  promise  to  Paul,  the  first 
and  greatest  of  missionaries,  that  the  grace  of  God 
would  be  sufficient  for  him,  yea,  would  be  perfected 
even  by  his  weakness,  Mr.  Duff  resigned  himself 
passively  into  the  Divine  hands.  In  those  days'  he 
did  not  commit  a  speech  or  address  to  writing,  but 
thoroughly  conned  over  the  materials  of  it,  leaving 
the  expression  to  the  time  when  he  should  stand  eye 
t'^  eye  with  tlie  crowd.  The  reforming  party  in  the 
Kirk  had  established  the  Scottish  Guardian  as  their 
weekly  newspaper,  in  Glasgow,  and  the  editor,  the 
Eev.  George  Lewis,  had  formed  a  volunteer  staff  of 
reporters  of  the  Assembly's  proceedings.  Brother  of 
one  who  was  a  warm  friend  of  Mr.  Duff — Dr.  James 
Lewis — and  himself  one  of  the  few  interested  in  the 
subject,  he  instructed  his  staff  to  take  down  as  full  a 
report  of  the  missionary's  speech  as  possible.  Monday, 
the  25th  ^Tay,  1835,  had  been  assigned  for  what  had 
liitherto  been  the  purely  formal   duty  of  presenting 


JEt.  29.  IN   THE    GENERAL   ASSEMBLY    OP    1835.  29 1 

the  annual  report  of  tlie  India  Mission.  The  Assem- 
bly met  in  that  most  un ecclesiastical  large  box  called 
the  Tron  kirk  of  Edinburgh.  Though  in  the  m'  -^han- 
ical  sense  unprepared,  and  just  risen  from  a  sick  bed, 
Mr.  Duff  testified  often  after,  that  never  during  his 
whole  life  did  ho  more  thoroughly  experience  the 
might  of  the  Divine  saying,  *'  As  thy  day  so  shall  thy 
strength  be."  At  first  it  seemed  as  if  he  could  not 
go  on  beyond  a  few  sentences,  and  he  was  conscious 
that  many  were  gazing  at  him,  apprehensive,  as  they 
afterwards  said,  that  he  would  soon  drop  on  the  floor. 
But,  leaping  by  one  effort  into  the  very  heart  of 
his  subject,  he  became  unconscious  of  the  presence 
of  his  audience  save  as  of  a  mass  which  was  gradually 
warming  to  his  heat.  Advancing  from  stage  to 
stage  of  what  was,  for  him,  *'  a  brief  exposition,"  he 
whispered  out  his  at  that  time  unmatched  peroration 
with  an  almost  supernatural  effect,  and  subsided 
drenched  with  perspiration  as  if  he  had  been  dragged 
through  the  Atlantic,  to  use  his  own  expression.  Then 
for  the  first  time  he  marked  the  emotion  of  his  hearers, 
many  of  them  callous  lawyers  and  lords  of  session, 
cool  men  *of  the  world  or  antipathetic  "  moderates." 
Down  the  cheeks  of  even  these  the  tears  were 
trickling. 

With  the  unconsciousness  of  the  highest  art  their 
first  Indian  missionary  at  once  planted  the  General 
Assembly  beside  him  in  Bengal,  as  he  set  himself  to 
"  the  conversion  of  a  hundred  and  thirty  millions  of 
idolaters."  Step  by  step  he  hurried  them  on  from  the 
first  attempt,  on  the  old  system,  to  influence  the-  edu- 
cated Hindoos,  through  the  statement  of  the  evidences 
of  Christianity,  of  miracles,  prophecy  and  the  demand 
for  the  proof  of  the  missionary's  authority,  till  this 
conclusion  was  reached :  "  The  power  of  conveying 
the  necessary  knowledge  seems  to  me  to  be  the  only 


292  LIFE   OF  DR.    DUFF.  1835. 

substitute  we  possess  instead  of  the  power  of  working 
miracles.  But  it  is  surely  one  thing  to  say,  that  a 
sound  liberal  education  is  greatly  advantageous  towards 
the  establishment  of  the  evidence  and  authority  of 
the  Christian  revelation,  and,  consequently,  towards 
securing  a  candid  and  attentive  hearing,  and  quite 
another  to  say,  that  it  is  indispensably  and  universally 
necessary  to  the  heart  reception  of  the  gospel  remedy. 
The  former  position  we  do  most  firmly  maintain,  but 
in  the  solemnity  of  apostolic  language,  we  exclaim, 
God  forbid  that  we  should  ever  maintain  the  latter ! 
Instead  of  demanding  your  authority  for  the  truth 
of  Christianity,  the  Brahman  may  challenge  you  to 
invalidate,  if  you  can,  the  claims  of  his  system.  You 
soon  find  that  there  is  no  common  ground  in  logic,  and 
you  turn  to  the  experimental  principles  of  physical 
science  to  find  the  cataclysms  of  the  Hindoo  cosmo- 
gony exalted  against  the  petty,  the  recent  learning  of 
the  West.  You  turn  to  theology  proper,  only  to  find 
that  the  Vedic  Shasters  sanctify  and  render  infallible 
all  Brahmanism,  secular  as  well  as  sacred.  Do  then," 
exclaimed  Duff,  after  pleading  for  the  supply  of  mis- 
sionaries "qualified  to  silence  the  intellectually  proud 
as  well  as  to  edify  the  spiritually  humble," 


tt 


Do  then  let  me  again  crave  the  attention  of  this  venerable 
court  to  the  grand  'peculiarity,  that  if  in  India  you  only  impart 
ordinary  useful  knowledge,  you  thereby  demolish  what  by  its 
peojjle  is  regarded  as  sacred.  A  course  of  instruction  that  pro- 
fosses  to  convey  truth  of  any  land  thus  becomes  a  species  of 
religious  education  in  such  a  land — all  education  being  there 
regarded  as  religious  or  theological.  Every  branch  of  sound 
general  knowledge  which  you  inculcate  becomes  the  destroyer 
of  some  corresponding  part  in  the  Hindoo  system.  It  is  this 
that  gives  to  the  dissemination  of  mere  human  knowledge,  in 
the  present  state  of  India,  such  awful  importance  :  it  is  this  that 
exalts  and  magnifies  it  into  the  rank  of  a  primary  instrument  in 
spreading  the  seeds  of  reformation  throughout  the  land.     I  ask 


JEt  29.  HIS   FIEST   OEATlON.  293 

not,  whether  SQund  useful  knowledge  be  universally  necessary, 
either  as  the  precursor  or  friendly  ally  of  that  which  is  divine. 
Such  is  neither  ray  own  impression  nor  belief.  But,  seeing 
that  the  communication  of  useful  knowledge  becomes,  in  tho 
circumstances  described,  such  a  tremendous  engine  for  breaking 
down  the  accumulated  superstitions  and  idolatries  of  ages,  I  tlo 
ask,  in  opposition  to  those  who  decry  and  donounco  useful 
knowledge,  not  in  the  abstract  but  as  totally  inapplicable  to 
missionary  purposes, — I  do  ask,  with  humble  but  confident 
boldness,  as  in  the  sight  of  Heaven,  'Who  is  it  that  will  hence- 
forward have  the  hardihood  to  assert  that  the  impartation  of 
such  knowledge  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  christianization  of 
India?'" 

But  tbe  European,  tbe  foreign  missionary  to  the 
educated  Hindoos  soon  comes  to  discover  further,  that 
if  the  gospel  is  to  be  extensively  "preached  with  power 
it  must  be  by  natives  themselves,  whom  it  is  his  task 
to  duly  qualify.  Appealing  to  the  Highland  ministers 
among  his  audience,  the  speaker  used  the  same  old 
analogy  of  the  Gaelic  and  English  which  ho  employed 
with  such  effect  against  the  one-sided  orientalists  of 
Calcutta : — 


tt 


Oh,  there  is  that  in  the  tones  of  a  foreigner's  voice  which 
falls  cold  and  heavy  on  the  ear  of  a  native,  aud  seldom  reaches 
the  heart ! — whereas,  there  i  sometliiug  in  tho  genuine  tones 
of  a  countryman's  voice,  wlucli,  operating  as  a  charm,  falls 
pleasantly  on  the  ear,  and  comes  home  to  the  feelings,  and 
touches  the  heart,  and  causes  its  teilderest  cords  to  vibrate. 
Doubtless  there  have  been,  and  there  may  be  now,  individual 
cases  of  foreigners  having  in  some  degree,  or  even  altogether, 
surmounted  tliis  grand  practical  difficulty.  But  these  raro 
cases  form  such  palpable  exceptions  from  tho  general  rule,  that 
they  can  scarcely  be  counted  on,  in  providing  a  nafwurtZ  supply 
of  preachers  of  the  everlasting  gospel.  Thus,  again,  is  the 
comparative  inefficiency  of  European  agency,  when  put  forth 
directly  in  proclaiming  the  gospel,  forced  upon  the  mind ;  and 
the  necessity  of  haviu'g  recourse  to  native  agents  in  the  work 
is  once  more  suggested  with  a  potency  that  is  resistless.    They 


294  ^^^^   OI'  DR.   DUFF.  1835. 

can  witlistand  that  blazing  sun,  they  can  bear  exposure  to  that 
unkindly  atmosphere,  they  can  locate  themselves  amid  the 
hamlets  and  the  villages,  they  can  hold  intercourse  with  their 
countrymen  in  ways  and  modes  that  we  never  can.  And 
having  the  thousand  advantages,  besides,  of  knowing  tho 
feelings,  the  sentiments,  the  traditions,  the  associations,  the 
habits,  the  manners,  the  customs,  the  trains  of  thought  and 
principles  of  reasoning  among  the  people,  they  can  strike  in 
with  arguments,  and  objections,  and  illustrations,  and  imagery 
which  we  could  never,  never  have  conceived.  How  glorious 
then  must  be  the  day  for  India  when  such  qualified  native 
agents  are  prepared  to  go  forth  among  the  people,  and  shake 
and  agitate,  and  rouse  them  from  the  lethargy  and  the  slumber 
of  ages  ! 

"  It  is  for  reasons  like  the  preceding,  that  a  man  of  fervent 
piety,  going  forth  with  the  fullest  intention  of  doing  nothing 
but  directly  and  exclusively  preaching  the  gospel  in  the  native 
tongues,  often  finds  himself,  in  such  a  country  as  India,  con- 
strained to  think  of  other  and  more  effectual  means  of  ulti- 
mately accomplishing  the  same  work,  and  hastening  the  same 
consummation." 

Then  followed  a  graphic  description  of  the  speaker's 
own  mo^o  of  overcoming  such  difficulties;  apathetic 
picture  of  the  separation  of  his  third  convert  from 
father  and  mother,  from  brothers  and  friends,  for  ever; 
and  a  contrast,  which  time  has  unhappily  only  proved 
at  once  a  prediction  and  a  justification,  in  the  political 
results  of  the  system  wbich  the  Government  of  India 
alone  of  all  ruling  powers,  civilized  or  barbarous,  pur- 
sues— public  instruction  carefully  divorced  from  all 
religion : — 


{( 


If  in  that  land  you  ao  give  the  people  Icnoivledge  without 
religion,  rest  assured  that  it  is  the  greatest  blunder,  politically 
speaking,  that  ever  was  committed.  Having  free  unrestricted 
access  to  the  whole  range  of  our  English  literature  and  science 
they  will  despise  and  reject  their  own  absurd  systems  of 
learning.  Once  driven  out  of  their  own  systems,  they  will  in- 
evitably become  infidels  ii^  religion.     And  shaken  out  of  the 


^t.  29.  HIS  FIRST   ORATION.  295 

mechanical  routine  of  their  own  roligious  observances,  without 
moral  principle  to  balance  their  thoughts  or  guide  their  move- 
ments, they    will  as  certainly   become  discontented,  restless 
agitators, — ambitious  of    power  and  official    distinction,   and 
possessed  of  the  most  disloyal  sentiments  towards  that  Govern- 
ment which,  in  their  eye,  has  usurped  all  the  authority  that 
rightfully  belonged  to  themselves.     This  is  not  theory,  it  is  a 
statement  of  fact.     I  myself  can  testify  in  this  place,  as  I  have 
already  done  on  the  spot,  that  expressions   and  opinions  of  a 
most  rebellious  nature  have  been  known  to  drop  from  some  of 
the  very  proteges  of  that  Government  which,  for  its  own  sake, 
is  so  infatuated  as  to  insist  on  giving  knowledge  apart  from 
religion.    But  as  soon  as  some  of  these  became  converts  to 
Christianity,  through  the  agency  already  described,  how  totally 
'    fferent  their  tone  of  feeling  towards  the  existing  Government  ? 
Their  bowels  yearned     7er  the  miseries  of  their  countrymen. 
Theif  now  knew  the  only  effectual  cure.  And  their  spontaneous 
feeling  was,  'Ah!  woe  be  unto  us,  if  the  British  Government 
were  destroyed  and  the  Hindoo  dynasties  restored  !     The  first 
thing  would  be  to  cut  us  off,  and  what  would  then  become  of 
our  poor  degraded  country  ?     Wo  pray  for  the    permanence 
of  the  British  Government,  that,  under  the  shadow  of  its  pro- 
tection, we  may  disseminate  the  healing  knowledge  of  Chris- 
tianity among  our  brethren, — that  knowledge  which  alone  can 
secure  their  present  welfare    and  immortal  happiness.'      In 
like  manner,  and  for  the  same  reason,  there  are  not  more  loyal 
or  patriotic  subjects  of  the  British  crown  than  the  young  men 
that  compose  the  more  advanced  classes  in  our  Institution.   So 
clearly  and  strongly  did  this  appear  to  many  members  of  the 
present  Government  in  India,  that  instead  of  regarding  us  with 
jealousy  and  suspicion  as  enemies,  they  looked  upon  us  as  tlie 
truest  friends  of  the  British  Government,  the  staunohest  sup- 
porters of  the  British  power.'' 

The  adoption  of  English  as  the  language  of  the 
higher  education,  the  abolition  of  foreign  Persian  as 
the  official  medium,  the  use  of  the  vernaculars  for 
giving  knowledge  to  the  millions,  the  spread  of  the 
higher  education  from  Calcutta  to  the  great  cities  and 
feudatory  states  of  Upper  and  Central  India,  and  the 


296  LIFE   OF   DE.    DUFF.  1835. 

duty  of  Scotland  through  its  Kirk,  all  the  more  since 
the  death  of  Inglis,  carried  the  orator  to  his  climax, 
■which  became  a  model  of  rhetoric  for  many  a  year 
after  in  the  schools  and  manuals  of  elocution : — 


"  Whenever  wo  malco  an  appeal  in  behalf  of  the  heathen,  it 
is  constantly  urged  that  there  are  enough  of  heathen  at  homo, 
— that  there  is  enough  of  work  to  be  done  at  home,  and  why 
roam  for  more  in  distant  lands?  I  strongly  suspect  that 
those  who  are  most  clamorous  in  advancing  this  plea  are  just 
the  very  men  who  do  little,  and  care  less,  either  for  heathen 
at  home  or  heathen  at  a  distance.  At  all  events,  it  is  a  plea 
far  more  worthy  of  a  heathen  than  of  a  Christian.  It  was 
not  thus  that  the  apostles  argued.  If  it  were,  they  never 
would  have  crossed  the  walls  of  Jerusalem.  There  they  would 
have  remained  contending  with  unbelieving  Jews,  till  caught 
by  the  flames  that  reduced  to  ashes  the  city  of  their  fathers. 
And  if  we  act  on  such  a  plea,  we  may  bo  charged  with  de- 
spising the  example  of  the  apostles,  and  found  loitering  at  home 
till  overtaken  by  the  flames  of  the  final  conflagration.  But 
shall  it  be  brooked  that  those  who  in  this  Assembly  have  so 
far  succeeded  to  their  office,  should  act  so  contrary  a  part  ? 
Let  us  pronounce  this  impossible.  I  for  one  can  see  no  con- 
trariety between  home  and  foreign  labour.  I  am  glad  that 
so  much  is  doing  for  home :  but  ten  times  more  may  yet  be 
done  both  for  home  and  for  abroad  too.  It  is  cheering  to 
think  of  the  overmastering  energy  that  is  now  put  forth  in 
the  cause  of  chui'ch  extension  in  this  land,  as  well  as  in  refer- 
ence to  improved  systems  of  education,  and  model-schools, 
and  more  especially  the  enlightenment  of  the  long-neglected 
and  destitute  Highlands.  I  know  the  Highlands;  they  are 
dear  to  me.  They  form  the  cradle  and  the  grave  of  my 
fathers ;  they  are  the  nursery  of  my  youthful  imaginings ; 
and  there  is  not  a  lake,  or  barren  heath,  or  naked  granite  peak 
that  is  not  dear  to  me.  How  much  more  dear  the  precious 
souls  of  those  who  tenant  these  romantic  regions !  Still, 
though  a  son  of  the  Highlands,  I  must,  in  my  higher  capacity 
as  a  disciple  of  Jesus,  be  permitted  to  put  the  question.  Has 
not  Inspiration  declared,  that  '  the  field  is  the  world  *  ? 
And  would  you  keep  your  spiritual  sympathies  pent  up  within 


^t.  29.  THE   rEROEATION.  297 

the  craggy  ramparts  of  the  Grampians  ?  Would  you  havo 
them  enchained  within  the  wild  and  rocky  shores  of  this  dis- 
tant isle  ?  '  The  field  is  the  world.'  And  the  more  we  are 
like  God, — the  more  wo  reflect  His  image, — the  moro  our 
nature  is  assimilated  to  the  Divine, — the  more  nearly  will  we 
view  the  world  as  God  has  done.  '  True  friendship,*  it  has 
been  said,  '  has  no  localities/  And  so  it  is  with  tho  lovo  of 
God  in  Christ.  The  sacrifice  on  Calvary  was  designed  to 
embrace  the  globe  in  its  amplitude.  Leo  us  view  tho  subject 
as  God  views  it — let  us  view  it  as  denizens  of  the  universe—* 
and  we  shall  not  be  bounded  in  our  efforts  of  philanthropy, 
short  of  the  north  or  south  pole.  Wherever  there  is  a  human 
being  there  must  our  sympathies  extend. 

"  And  since  you,  hero  assembled,  are  the  representatives  of 
that  National  Church  that  has  put  forth  an  emphatic  expres- 
sion of  faith  in  the  Redeemer's  promises;  an  emphatic  ex- 
pression of  expectation  that  all  these  promises  shall  one  day 
be  gloriously  realized — and  in  these  troublous  times  this  is  a 
precious  testimony — I  call  upon  you  to  follow  it  up  with  deeds 
proportionate.  *  Faith  without  works  is  dead.'  Let  you, 
the  representative  body  of  this  Church,  commence,  and  show 
that  the  pulse  of  benevolence  has  begun  to  beat  higher  here, 
and  if  so,  it  will  circulate  through  all  the  veins  of  the  great 
system.  Let  the  impulsive  influence  begin  here,  and  it  will 
flow  throughout  the  land.  Let  us  awake,  arise,  and  rescue 
unhappy  India  from  its  present  and  impending  horrors.  Ah  ! 
long,  too  long  has  India  been  made  a  theme  for  the  visions  of 
poetry  and  the  dreams  of  romance.  Too  long  has  it  been 
enshrined  in  the  sparkling  bubbles  of  a  vapoury  sentimentalism. 
One's  heart  is  indeed  sickened  with  the  eternal  song  of  its 
balmy  skies  and  voluptuous  gales — its  golden  dewa  and 
pageantry  of  blossoms — its 

'fields  of  paradise  and  bowers, 
Entwining  amaranthine  flowers,'— 

its  blaze  of  suns,  and  torrents  of  eternal  light : — one's  heart 
is  sickened  with  this  eternal  song,  when  -above,  we  behold 
nought  but  the  spiritual  gloom  of  a  gathering  tempest,  re- 
lieved only  by  the  lightning  glance  of  the  Almighty's  indigna- 
tion— around,  a  waste  moral  wilderness,  where  *  all  life  dies, 
and  death  lives' — and  underneath,   one    vast  catacomb   of 


298  LIFK   OP  DR.    DUFI'.         '  1835, 

immortal  souls  perishing  for  lack  of  knowledge.  Let  us  arise, 
and  resolve  that  houceforward  these  'climes  of  the  sun  '  shall 
not  be  viewed  merely  as  a  storehouse  of  flowers  for  poetry,  and 
figures  for  rhetoric,  and  bold  strokes  for  oratory  ;  but  shall 
become  the  climes  of  a  better  sun — even  '  the  Sun  of  right- 
eousness J '  the  nursery  of  '  plants  of  renown. '  that  shall 
bloom  and  blossom  in  the  regions  of  immortality.  Let  us 
arise  and  revive  the  genius  of  the  olden  time  :  let  us  revive 
the  spirit  of  our  forefathers.  Like  them,  let  us  unsheathe  the 
sword  of  the  Spirit,  unfurl  the  banners  of  the  Cross,  sound 
the  gospel-trump  of  jubilee.  Like  them,  let  us  enter  into 
a  Solemn  League  and  Covenant  before  our  God,  in  behalf  of 
that  benighted  land,  that  wo  will  not  rest,  till  the  voice  of 
praise  and  thanksgiving  arise,  in  daily  orisons,  from  its  coral 
strands,  roll  over  its  fertile  plains,  resound  from  its  smiling 
valleys,  and  re-echo  from  its  everlasting  hills.  Thus  shall 
it  be  proved,  that  the  Church  of  Scotland,  though  '  poor,  can 
make  many  rich,'  being  herself  replenished  from  the  '  fulness 
of  the  Godhead:' — that  the  Church  of  Scotland,  though 
powerless,  as  regards  carnal  designs  and  worldly  policies,  has 
yet  the  divine  power  of  bringing  many  sons  to  glory;  of 
calling  a  spiritual  progeny  from  afar,  numerous  as  the  drops 
of  dew  in  the  morning,  and  resplendent  with  the  shining  of 
the  Sun  of  righteousness — a  noble  company  of  ransomed 
multitudes,  that  shall  hail  you  in  the  realms  of  day,  and  crown 
you  with  the  spoils  of  victory,  and  sit  on  thrones,  and  live  and 
reign  with  you,  amid  the  splendours  of  an  unclouded  universe. 
*'  May  God  hasten  the  day,  and  put  it  into  the  heart  of  every 
one  present  to  engage  in  the  glorious  work  of  realizing  it !  " 

The  long-drawn  sigh  of  the  profoundly  moved 
hearers  relieved  the  suppressed  emotion  which  lighted 
up  or  bedimmed  every  face.  The  presence  of  God 
alone  was  the  fitting  place  at  such  a  time,  and 
Dr.  Gordon  was  unanimously  called  on  to  lead  the 
devotions  of  the  Assembly  in  praise  and  thanksgiving 
to  God.  When  the  tunult  of  emotion  was  thus 
chastened,  one  after  another  of  the  leaders  of  the 
house,  on  both  sides,  rose  to  give  expression  to  his 
feelings.    Among  these  was  the  venerable  Dr.  Stewart, 


^t.  29.  IMMEDIATE   EFFECT   OP  THE    SrEECH.  299 

of  Erskine,  who  thus  spoke : — "  Moderator,  it  has 
been  my  privilege  to  hear  Mr.  Fox  and  JMr.  Pitt  speak 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  that  grand  focus  of  British 
eloquence,  when  in  the  very  zenith  of  their  glory  as 
statesmen  and  orators'.  I  now  solemnly  declare  that  I 
never  heard  from  either  of  them  a  speech  similar,  or 
second  to  that  to  which  we  have  now  listened,  alike 
for  its  lofty  tone,  thought  and  sentiment,  its  close 
argumentative  force,  its  transcendent  eloquence  and 
overpowering  impreasiveness."  The  Rev.  J.  W. 
Taylor,  of  Fiisk,  still  lives  to  give  us  this  remiuiscenco 
of  that  day  : — 

"Before  Alexander  D-iiff  left  St.  Andrews  for  India  tliero 
was  a  meeting  of  the  Studeuts*  Missionary  Society  in  St, 
Mary's  College.  I  stumbled  up  the  dark  stairs,  and  when  I 
got  into  the  room,  I  found  ^'uff  addressing  a  small  meeting, 
and  lamenting  in  his  own  pathetic  way  the  little  interest 
which  the  cause  of  Christ  and  of  missions  was  awakening  in 
the  student  mind.  The  next  time  I  heard  Duff  was  in  the 
General  Assembly  of  1835.  I  was  tliere  as  a  volunteer 
reporter  to  the  Scottish  Guardian.  It  was  fortunate  that  the 
reporting  of  Duff's  speech  was  entrusted  to  the  cool  head  and 
steady  hand  of  Professor  Chalmers  of  Loudon.  All  the  rest 
of  us  reporters  sat  spell-bound.  There  stood  Duff  in  front  of 
the  square  box-like  enclosure  which  contained  the  moderator, 
the  procurator,  the  clerks,  and  the  more  distinguished  leaders 
of  the  Assembly.  The  look  of  modesty,  of  dignity,  of  anxiety, 
as  if  conscious  that  the  future  of  his  plan  of  Indian  missions 
was  suspended  under  God  upon  the  impression  which  would 
be  made  that  day  upon  that  Assembly,  won  the  interest  of 
every  one  in  the  crowded  house.  And  as  the  great  missionary 
went  on  expounding  in  bis  own  deep  heart-moving  tones  his 
great  method  of  overthrowing  Hindooism  by  the  combined 
agencies  of  a  sacred  education  and  of  the  Bible,  for  betwixt 
two  and  three  hours  he  held  the  vast  audience  under  the  sway 
of  his  commanding  eloquence,  and  when  he  finished  one 
conviction  possessed  every  heart — this  is  the  key-note  for 
India's  evangelization.  Many  old  ministers  who  had  been 
cold  in  the  cause  of  missions,  and  many  moderate  ministers 


300  LIFE    OP   DR.    DUFF.  1 835. 

who  liaJ  boon  opposod  to  missions,  dated  the  rise  of  missionary 
zeal  in  tlioir  hearts  from  the  speech  of  that  day.  Even  Dr. 
George  Cook,  who  in  his  lectures  to  his  students  was  accus- 
tomed to  argue  against  foreign  missions,  under  tho  stirring 
impulse  of  Dr.  Duff's  address  rose  and  vied  with  the  evan- 
gelical brethren  in  expressing  his  admiration  of  the  zeal,  the 
skil  fulness,  tuo  dovotedness  and  big-heartedness  of  the  great 
missionary. 

"  The  first  India  mission  speech  of  Duff  was  sufficient  of 
itself  to  signalise  any  Assembly.  But  tho  Assembly  of  1835 
was  rendered  further  illustrious  by  the  famous  speech  of  Rev. 
Andrew  Gray,  demanding  for  chapels  of  ease  tho  status  of 
Presbyterian  Churches,  and  the  constitutional  provision  of 
kirk-sessions  and  representation  in  the  Presbytery.' 


}> 


The  Scottish  Guardian  of  next  day  wrote  thus : — 
"  Mr.  Duff's  speech  will  be  found  at  full  length  in  our 
columns,  occupying  tlie  most  prominent  place  in  the 
proceedings  of  the  Assembly  of  yesterday.  It  lias 
thrown  a  flood  of  light  upon  the  christianization  of 
India,  and  furnished  principles  and  information  for 
guiding  our  Church  which  will  lead  to  an  entire  new 
model  of  missions,  and  give,  we  trust,  a  new  direction 
to  all  the  efforts  of  the  Christians  of  Britain  in  behalf 
of  India.  It  would  be  vain  for  us  to  attempt  to 
describe  the  impression  which  the  lofty,  intelligent 
Christian  enthusiasm  and  fervid  eloquence  of  Mr. 
Duff  produced  upon  the  Assembly.  Every  heart  felt 
his  appeal,  and  every  understanding  approved  the 
wisdom  and  sagacity  of  the  means  which  he  proposed 
for  giving  success  to  the  missionary  enterprise  and 
achieving  the  christianization  of  India.  It  will  be 
long  ere  the  Assembly  will  forget  his  pleading.  His 
appearance  has  thrown  a  sacredness  around  its  meet- 
ing, and  will  give  a  Christian  elevation  and  dignity  to 
the  whole  of  its  procedure.  His  speech  will  yet  tell 
in  its  moral  influence,  not  only  in  the  cottages  of  India, 
but  in  the  cottages  of  our  own  land,  and  will  send 


JEt.  29.  THE    FIRST   BATTLE    OP  THE    UOME   CAMPAiaN.        30I 

back  our  clergy  to  their  homes  smitten  with  the 
missionary  and  apostolic  spirit  that  burns  witli  sweet 
fervour  in  the  breast  of  our  devoted  missionary.  Who 
would  not  pray  God  that  he  might  have  the  same 
wisdom  and  Christian  zeal,  and  might  bring  these 
to  bear  upon  the  christianization  of  his  own  allotted 
vineyard  in  the  Church,  with  the  same  success  as  Mr. 
Duff  promises  to  concentrate  them  upon  his  Indian 
enterprise  ?  " 

The  Preshytcnan  Bevicw  of  the  following  July 
described  the  whole  house  as  "  absorbed  in  one  feeling, 
exquisite  even  to  pain ;  tears  ran  down  almost  every 
cheek  "  during  the  address.  The  historian  of  "  the 
ten  years'  conflict,"  declaring  that  it  is  difficult  to 
refer,  at  this  distance  of  time,  to  the  impression  which 
it  produced  without  using  what  may  seem  like  the 
language  of  exaggeration,  records  : — "  It  was  indeed  a 
token  that  better  days  had  come  for  the  Church  of 
Scotland,  when  Chalmers  and  Duff  were  contempor- 
aneously making  the  whole  country  resound  with 
their  noble  pleadings — the  one  for  the  heathen  at 
home,  the  other  for  the  heathen  abroad."  The 
General  Assembly  ordered  the  publication  of  the 
address,  and  two  editions  of  twenty  thousand  copies, 
following  the  newspaper,  spread  it  abroad,  not  only 
over  Great  Britain,  but  in  America  and  many  parts  of 
the  continent  of  Europe.  In  Scotland,  as  in  India, 
the  first  battle  of  the  campaign  had  been  won. 

But  only  the  first.  For  it  was  natural  and  advan- 
tageous that  this,  the  earliest  adequate  statement  in  the 
West  of  what  has  since  been  called  the  educational 
system  of  missions,  should  excite  discussion  and  bring 
down  on  its  advocate  the  charges,  now  of  overlooking 
other  agencies  and  then  of  being  an  innovator,  now  of 
departing  from  apostolic  precedents  and  again  of  not 
sufficiently    recognising    the   difference    between   the 


302  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1835. 

Btato  of  tlio  Britisli  and  of  that  of  tho  Roman  empire. 
Dr.  Wilson  also  had  protested  against,  and  had  de- 
parted from  the  stereotyped  and  fruitless  policy  of 
the  missionaries  whom  he  had  found  in  Western  India, 
but  that  was  in  India  itself,  and  the  Scottish  Mission- 
ary Society  had  reproved  him  instead  of  publishing  his 
communications.  Both  the  Bengal  and  the  Bombay 
apostles  taught  and  practised  the  system  which  Scrip- 
ture, their  Church  and  experience  alike  led  them  to 
elaborate  independently  of  each  other — that  of  chris- 
tianizing the  Hindoos,  Parsoes  and  Muhammadans, 
who  are  each  the  inheritor  of  a  complex  body  of 
religion,  philosophy  and  literature,  by  public  and 
private  discussion,  and  by  continuous  instruction  in 
Western  truth  through  the  English  language.  In 
their  hands,  and  that  of  all  their  worthy  successors 
in  every  Church  and  society,  colleges,  lectures,  frank 
discussion,  daily  tuition  become,  for  these  classes^  as 
truly  evangelistic  and  converting  as  village  preaching 
and  purely  vernacular  teaching  for  the  simple  non- 
Aryan  peoples. 

Never  did  public  speaker  in  any  assembly  think 
less  of  himself  or  of  the  form  of  his  oratory,  and 
more  of  the  message  which  he  believed  he  was  charged 
by  his  Master  to  deliver  to  the  Church  and  the 
.  country,  than  did  Duff.  Hence  the  immediate  in- 
fluence on  those  who  heard  him,  and  the  abiding 
power  of  the  printed  report  of  what  he  said,  although 
that  fell  far  below  the  reality  in  days  when  verbatim 
reporting  was  unknown.  He  spake  as  a  prophet,  not 
as  a  carefully  prepared  rhetorician.  This  redeemed 
his  orations  from  the  dangers  of  the  florid  style 
which  was  the  fashion  of  that  period  of  literature, 
while  it  gave  him  the  power  of  the  more  recent  school 
of  eloquence,  of  which  Mr.  Bright  is  the  master. 
More  nearly  than  any  of   the   speakers  of   the  first 


JE{.  39.  TUE    STYLE   OP    DTS   ORATORY.  303 

half  of  tlio  nineteenth  century,  Duff  thug  rcahzed  tliat 
which  Mr.  Gladstone  has  pronounced  the  supreme  in- 
fluence of  the  speaker,  the  power  of  "  receiving  fro'u 
his  audience  in  a  vapour  what  ho  pours  back  on  them 
in  a  flood."  But,  while  eschewing  the  mechanical 
or  formally  rhetorical  preparation  which  would  have 
cramped  while  it  polished  his  utterance,  Duff  did  not 
neglect  the  careful  and  admiring  study  of  the  masters 
of  English  eloquence,  from  Chatham  and  Burke  to 
Erskine  and  Canning.  A  little  collection  of  their 
master-pieces  published  in  1827  seems  to  havo  been, 
at  one  time,  his  constant  companion.  It  is  carefully 
marked  at  such  speeches  as  these — Mr.  Pitt,  in  vindi- 
cation of  his  father,  Lord  Chatham ;  Mr.  Fox,  in 
respect  to  the  Government  of  India ;  Mr.  Grattan,  on 
moving  for  a  committee  on  the  claims  of  the  Roman 
Catholics;  and  Mr.  Brougham  on  the  slave  trade. 
From  these  was  the  form  of  his  oratory  unconsciously 
derived  ;  but  not  more  from  these  than  from  Chalmers 
— his  St.  Andrews  lectures  on  moral  philosophy,  eman- 
cipation speech  and  sermons,  such  as  Mr.  Gladstone 
to  *^^his  day  pronounces  equalled  only  by  the  very 
diSerent  "  reasoned  homilies"  of  John  Henry  Newman. 
Duff",  too,  was  at  once  as  fortunate  and  unfortunate 
in  his  principal  theme  as  his  greatest  models.  For  if 
the  India  of  popular  lancy  casts  a  glamour  over  the 
imagination,  the  novelty  of  its  names,  customs,  and 
beliefs  repels  the  mind  which  desires  the  passive  en- 
joyment of  eloquence  in  proportion  to  the  earnestness, 
the  fulness  and  the  accuracy  of  the  speaker.  On 
India  showy  platitudes  tell  where  authoritative  know- 
ledge, even  when  expressed  in  the  chastest  rhetoric, 
fails  to  attract.  Witness  the  contrast,  at  the  present 
day,  between  the  popularity  of  Macaulay  and — in  this 
sense — his  successor,  Sir  Henry  Maine.  Duff's  first 
Assembly    address    was    precisely    what    Sheridan's 


304  LIFE   Of  DR.    DUFF.  1835. 

celebrated  Begum  of  Oudli  speech  had  been — unex- 
pectedly magical  in  its  effect  on  the  hearers,  but  lost 
to  a  great  extent  in  the  report.  It  was  India  that 
revealed  Burke  as  the  orator  he  became.  The  know- 
ledge which  he  gained  in  the  select  committee  of  1780 
fed  his  imagination  with  events  even  more  distant 
and  new  than  the  Terror  of  the  French  Revolution. 
Into  that  imagination  the  malicious  Francis  dropped 
the  spark  which  caused  it  to  explode  into  the  five 
great  speeches  on  the  impeachment  of  Warren  Hast- 
ings. After  Sheridan  had  failed  in  that  year,  so 
that,  like  a  living  statesman  of  the  same  type,  he 
exclaimed  to  Woodfall,  "  It  is  in  me,  and  it  shall  come 
out,"  India  enabled  him  to  make  the  speech  which  led 
the  House  to  adjourn,  from  the  impossibility  of  debat- 
ing judicially  after  it.  Burke,  Fox  and  Pitt  united  in 
declaring  it  the  most  extraordinary  effort  of  human 
eloquence,  ancient  or  modern,  just  as  the  venerable 
Stewart  of  Erskine  said  of  Duff's  that  it  surpassed 
the  finest  efforts  of  Fox  and  Pitt,  yet  these  speakers 
were  second  only  to  Burke  in  the  higher  flights  of 
the  imagination,  in  the  abandon  which  resulted  from 
absorption  in  their  subject.  The  impartial  and  ex- 
perienced Wilberforce  did  not  mean  to  praise  Canning 
when  he  said  that  that  speaker  never  drew  you  to  him 
in  spite  of  yourself,  as  Pitt  and  Fox  used  to  do,  yet 
he  was  a  more  finished  orator  than  either.  Canning 
had  wit  and  humour  inconsistent  with  abandon^  but 
as  precious  in  themselves  as  they  are  rare.  Duff 
manifested  powers  of  sarcasm  and  scathing  indignation 
when  he  rose  to  the  heights  of  his  prophetic  message 
and  was  called  to  demolish  opposition  or  expose 
hypocrisy  in  the  name  of  his  Master.  For  it  was  not 
India  only,  but  India  for  Christ,  that  was  the  source 
of  his  inspiration. 


CHAPTER    XL 

1835-1836. 

BB.    BUFF    OltOANIZING, 

Degree  of  Doctor  of  Divinity. — Dr.  Duff  called  to  fill  the  place  of 
Dr.  Inglis  in  Old  Groyfriars. — Offered  South  Church,  Aberdeen, 
and  recommends  Dr.  Tweedie. — The  Higher  Calling  of  the  Mis- 
sionary.— The  Mai'iioch  Case. — Pressed  by  the  Earl  of  Fife  to 
prevent  Schism  by  accepting  the  Living. — Plan  of  Rousing  every 
Presbytery  formed  on  the  Voyage  Home. — Foreign  Missions  out- 
side of  Church  Parties. — The  First  Campaign  of  1835. — Ex- 
periences in  the  Far  North. — Enthusiastic  Iloception. — Return 
of  Fever. — The  Second  Campaign,  of  183G,  opened  in  Perth. — 
Description  by  Eye-witnesses.  —  Dr.  WilHam  Thomson.  —  Dr. 
Guthrie  and  the  Opponent  of  the  Law  of  Gravitation. — Invita- 
tions from  England. —  "jpeech  for  the  Church  Missionary  Society. 
— The  Guest  of  Carus  in  Trinity  College,  Cambridge. — Sacred 
Interview  with  the  aged  Simeon. — Memories  of  the  Moulin  Re- 
vival.— Whewell. — Original  MS.  of  the  "Paradise  Lost,"  as  a 
Drama. — Milton  and  the  Cam. — Dr.  Duff  addresses  Public  Meet- 
ing called  by  the  Mayor. — At  Leamington  with  Dr.  Jephson. — 
News  from  Calcutta. — Intercourse  with  Lord  William  Bentinck. 

Fa.e  more  effectually  than  even  the  speaker  had  dared 
to  dream,  the  first  Assembly  oration  of  the  first  mis- 
sionary of  its  Church  set  Scotland  on  fire.  The 
excitement  of  the  general  election,  which  for  the  hour 
made  Dr.  Chalmers  so  much  of  a  Tory  as  to  call  forth 
the  remark  in  his  broadest  Fifeshire  accent,  "  I  have 
a  moral  loathing  of  these  Whugs,"  had  spent  itself. 
The  new  spiritual  life  which  was  to  work  itself  out 
in  the  disruption  of  1843  had  asserted  its  power  in 
the  General  Assemblies  of  1834  and  1835.  Even 
Dr.  Inglis  had  declared  just  before  his  death,  "  The 

X 


306  UF£   OP   DR.   DUFF.  1835. 

kingdom  of  Christ  is  not  only  spiritual  but  inde- 
pendent. No  earthly  government  has  a  right  to 
overrule  or  control  it."  Chalmers,  with  such  disci- 
ples as  the  young  Thomas  Guthrie,  had  begun  to  go 
forth  on  his  evangelical  mission  of  church  extension 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  Scotland.  Side 
by  side  and  in  loving  co-operation  with  that,  as 
Chalmers  had  always  taught  and  he  himself  had 
again  enforced,  Duff  proclaimed  and  established  the 
claims  of  foreign  missions.  The  whole  people  were 
ready  to  receive  the  missionary ;  almost  every  parish 
competed  for  a  visit  from  him.  Zealously  anticipating 
St.  Andrews  and  the  other  universities,  Marischal 
College,  Aberdeen,  had  hardly  met  for  the  autumn 
session  of  1835  when  it  honoured  itself  and  surprised 
the  young  divine,  still  under  thirty,  by  presenting  him 
with  the  diploma  of  Doctor  of  Divinity. 

The  most  embarrassing  and  even  annoying  form 
taken  by  the  popularity  thus  suddenly  acquired  and 
steadily  increased  for  many  a  year,  was  that  of  the 
patrons  of  church  livings,  and  the  then  few  congre- 
gations who  had  the  right  to  call  their  own  minister, 
persecuting  Dr.  Duff  to  settle  amongst  them.  He 
must  effectually  clear  this  obstacle  out  of  his  path 
before  entering  on  his  first  home  crusade.  What  to 
some  would  have  seemed  a  flattering  recognition  of 
their  merits  was  to  him  at  once  humiliating  and 
irritating.  That  it  should  be  supposed  he  would  even 
consider  proposals  to  retreat  from  the  front  of  the 
battle  into  the  easy  and  yet  respectable  comfort  of 
the  baggage,  was  an  evidence  of  the  dense  ignorance 
which  long  prevailed  regarding  the  missionary  duty 
of  the  Church,  and  a  reflection  on  his  own  sacrifice 
to  that  duty.  Dr.  Ing^is  was  gone.  Dr.  Anderson, 
who  had  been  appointed  his  successor,  soon  followed 
him,  and  the  otherwise  attractive  city  charge  of  Old 


^t.  29.     OFFERED   THE    LIVING    OF   OLD    GRKYFRIARS.  307 

Greyfriars  was  pressed  upon  Dr.  DufF.  The  patrons 
were  the  Lord  Provost,  tlien  the  Honble.  Mr.  Trotter, 
and  the  town  council  of  Edinburgh,  but  they  had  pro- 
mised to  leave  the  election  in  the  hands  of  the  congre- 
gation if  it  were  unanimous.  On  the  very  morning 
when  Dr.  Duff  was  to  open  his  crusade  in  the  country, 
just  half  an  hour  before  he  was  to  leave  his  house  for 
the  Perth  stage-coach,  which  then  started  from  the 
Black  Bull  Inn,  at  the  head  of  Lekh  Walk,  he  was 
stopped  by  a  deputation  from  the  kirk-session  and 
people  offering  him  the  living.  When  he  showed  some 
impatience  under  the  long  catalogue  of  weighty  reasons 
which  they  advanced  for  his  closing  with  their  urgent 
request,  they  thought  that  they  \voald  secure  him  by 
the  temptation  of  preaching  for  the  rest  of  his  days 
amid  the  grandest  ecclesiastical  and  historical  associa- 
tions, and  in  the  pulpit  of  his  old  friend  Dr.  laglis. 
Hardly  had  he  escaped  from  a  position  which  Pro- 
fessor Wilson's  cousin,  John  Sym.  was  to  fill  side 
by  side  with  Dr.  Guthrie,  and  reached  the  Highlands, 
when  the  South  Church  of  Aberdeen  laid  hold  of  him. 
Determined  not  to  lose  the  advantage  of  his  services 
altogether,  the  disappointed  people  besought  him  to 
name  a  candidate  most  like  to  himself.  The  delicacy 
of  this  duty  troubled  him ;  but  he  met  the  repeated 
invitation  to  assist  the  congregation  by  directing 
their  attention  to  Dr.  Tweedie,  his  old  fellow-student, 
whose  ability  he  had  again  personally  recognised  in 
London  Wall  Presbyterian  church.  The  Aberdeen 
people  had  plied  him  with  the  argument  that,  by 
meeting  their  request,  Ae  would  be  fible  to  advocate 
the  claims  of  India  at  home.  In  the  appendix  to  the 
published  sermon  on  the  mutual  duties  and  responsi- 
bilities of  pastor  and  people,  which  he  preached  on 
introducing  the  new  minister  to  the  church,  he  thus 
dealt  with  that  consideration : — 


308  LIFE   OF  DE.   DUFF.  1835. 

"  Were  I  to  remain  iu  my  native  land,  it  would  doubtless  be 
still  in  my  power  to  do  something  by  way  of  advocating  tlie 
claims  of  poor  benighted  India.  In  that  case,  however,  me- 
thinks  my  tongue  would  not  only  falter,  but  often  *  cleave  to 
the  roof  of  my  mouth/  Fearlessly  f^nd  unsparingly  have  I 
reprobated  the  indolence  and  cowardice  of  those  who  kept 
lingering,  lounging  and  loitering  at  homo,  in  lazy  expectation 
of  some  snug  peaceful  settlement,  instead  of  nobly  marching 
forward  into  the  wide  field  of  the  world,  to  earn  new  trophies 
for  their  Redeemer,  by  planting  His  standard  in  hitherto 
unconquered  realms.  Neither  have  I  suppressed  my  honest 
indignation  at  the  no  less  criminal  supineness  of  others,  who, 
having  once  obtained  such  settlements,  ingeniously  devise  a 
thousand  petty  frivolous  pretexts  for  continuing  to  wrap  them- 
selves up  in  the  congenialities  and  luxurious  indulgences  of 
home,  instead  of  boldly  daring,  though  at  an  immeasurable 
distance,  to  tread  in  the  footsteps  of  apostles  and  prophets 
and  martyrs.  Not  that  I  would  have  such  loiterers  to  join  our 
storming  ranks.  Far  otherwise.  I,  for  one,  would  wash  my 
hands  of  the  guilt  of  appending  such  drags  to  the  chariot 
wheels  of  the  conquering  Messiah.  The  grand  evil  is  that 
such  persons  should  exist  at  all,  arrayed  externally  in  the  garb 
of  the  heralds  of  salvation.  How  often  have  our  ears  been 
regaled  with  the  music  of  eloquence,  echoing  the  songs  of 
divine  chivalry  and  the  battles  of  the  faith  ?  But  all  the 
while  have  we  not  been  left  in  sorrow  to  exclaim, — Where  the 
rushing  crowd  of  champions,  clad  in  armour  of  light  ?  Where 
the  continued  toiling,  and  struggling,  and  fighting  which  form 
the  certain  prelude  to  decisive  victory  ?  Alas  !  alas  !  if  without 
an  effort,  without  a  struggle  and  without  a  sacrifice,  imagina- 
tion alone  could  conquer  all  difficulties,  then,  with  the  ease  of 
some  potent  spell,  and  the  rapidity  of  some  inexplicable  en- 
chantment, might  we  behold  every  howling  waste  converted 
into  gardens  of  delight,  and  golden  palaces  starting  from 
every  barren  shore  !  Such  sentiments  and  expressions  may  bo 
deemed  by  many  over-severe  and  not  a  little  uncharitable.  If 
so,  I  cannot  help  it.  What  I  feel  strongly  I  express  strongly. 
How  then  could  I  in  consistency,  after  such  decisive  expression 
of  my  own  feelings,  reconcile  myself  to  the  resolution  of 
throwing  aside  my  weapons  of  aggressive  warfare,  and  timidly 
shrinking  down  into  the  shrivelled  form  of  a  comfort-seeking 


JEt.  29.       THE    HIGHEIl   CALLING   OF   A    MISSIONARY.  309 

tirae-servcr  at  home  ?  What  a  plausible  corroboration  might 
thereby  be  given  to  the  base  calumny,  that  few  or  none  go 
forth  to  heathen  climes  but  such  as  have  been  unsuccessful 
and  disappointed  candidates  for  office  in  their  native  land, — 
the  only  merit  allowed  them  being  the  ignoble  one  of  making 
a  virtue  of  necessity  ?  What  a  triumph  might  be  furnished 
to  the  thousands  who  stoutly  call  in  question  the  sincerity  of 
those  who  profess  their  willingness  to  submit  to  sacriliccs  for 
the  sake  of  Christ  ?  And  with  what  shouts  of  dei-ision  might 
any  appeals  of  mine,  on  the  subject  of  personally  engaging  in 
the  toils  of  missionary  labour,  be  responded  to  ? 


>i 


The  third  among  many  other  temptations  put  before 
Dr.  Duft*  was  of  a  different  and,  in  an  ecclesiastical 
sense,  still  higher  kind.  It  was  nothing  less  than  this, 
that  he  might  save  the  Church  of  Scotland  from  being 
rent  in  two  by  the  conflict  for  spiritual  independence 
which  had  now  entered  on  its  life  and  death  stage. 
The  famous  Marnoch  case,  with  all  the  Strathbogie  scan- 
dals, was  in  its  early  stage,  having  succeeded  the  first 
assault  of  the  civil  courts,  made  in  the  Auchterarder 
case,  on  the  spiritual  independence  in  purely  spiritual 
things  guaranteed  to  the  Kirk  by  Scottish  Acts  of  Par- 
liament, the  Treaty  of  Union  and  the  Revolution  Settle- 
ment. Marnoch  is  a  small  parish  on  the  Dover  on, 
nine  miles  south-west  of  Banff.  The  Earl  of  Fife  was 
patron  of  the  living,  which  fell  vacant  after  the  Act 
of  the  General  Assembly  restoring  to  communicants 
their  spiritual  and  historical  right  to  veto  the  patron's 
appointment  of  a  minister  of  whom  they  disapproved. 
The  earl,  who  had  settled  down  in  Duff  House,  was 
indifferent  to  the  Veto  Act,  but  lie  did  not  wish  the 
annoyance  of  fighting  his  own  tenantry  on  such  a 
question.  In  the  days  of  his  dissipation  as  boon  com- 
panion of  George  IV.,  he  had  allowed  his  brother, 
General  Duff,  to  promise  the  living,  when  it  should  bo 
vacant,  to  one  Edwards,  long  a  tutor  in  the  family. 


3IO  LIFE    OF   DR.    DUFF.  1835. 

But  the  old  minister  would  not  die,  while  the  Veto  Act 
represented  an  earnest  change  of  popular  opinion  on  the 
traffic  in  livings  which  had  once  already  rent  the  Kirk, 
having  degraded  the  nation  ever  since  Queen  Anne's 
days.  The  earl,  having  sobered  down,  at  first  tried  to 
induce  his  brother  to  release  him  from  the  promise  to 
Edwards.  Failing  in  this,  the  puzzled  and  somewhat 
penitent  patron  put  in  Edwards  as  the  old  minister's 
assistant,  half  hoping  that  the  now  sapless  "  Dominie 
Sampson  "  might  be  accepted  by  the  people  for  pity's 
sake.  Alas!  for  the  earl,  the  tutor  proved  so  prodigious 
a  failure  that  the  little  parish  came  to  hate  him,  and  the 
kirk  became  emptier  than  ever.  Again  the  earl  appealed 
to  his  ruthless  brother:  "John  Edwards  had  been 
fairly  tried  and  found  wanting ;  would  he  accept  this 
fact  as  sufficiently  redeeming  his  promise  to  the  un- 
happy tutor,  which  should  never  have  been  made,  and 
agree  to  another  plan  ?"  This  was,  to  ask  their  clans- 
man, Dr.  Duff,  to  accept  the  nomination  to  Marnoch, 
which  had  now  become  vacant,  in  the  certainty  that  he 
would  be  unanimously  called  by  the  people  under  the 
Veto  Act.  General  Duff  heartily  consented,  and,  let 
us  hope,  was  inclined  to  provide  for  the  old  tutor  at 
his  own  expense  instead  of  at  the  spiritual  cost  of 
the  parish. 

On  this  the  earl  asked  his  own  minister,  Mr. 
Grant,  of  Banff,  to  plead  with  Dr.  Duff,  to  whom 
the  nomination  was  offered  as  a  mark  of  the  earl's 
good  will,  as  some  recognition  of  his  high  deserts, 
as  the  only  means  of  delivering  the  patron  from  a 
terrible  dilemma  and  of  preventing  a  local  scandal ; 
but,  above  all,  as  a  sure  bulwark  against  the  tide 
of  schism  and  anarchy  which  might  sweep  away 
the  Kirk  itself  and  destroy  even  its  Bengal  Mission. 
Dr.  Duff  was  implored  to  be  the  Curtius  who  would 
thus  close  up  the  gulf  for  ever.     It  was  all  in  vain. 


JEt.  2g.  THE    MAKNOOH    CASE    AND   TUE    EARL   OP    FIFE.       31I 

Poor  Edwards  was  forced  on  the  throe  liundred  heads 
of  famihes  and  thirteen  heritors  against  their  solemn 
dissent,  against  the  hiw  of  the  Kirk  and  of  the  hand  till 
Parliament  altered  it,  and  against  the  rising  claniuur 
of  the  whole  country.  Ho  was  invited  by  only  one 
heritor  besides  the  earl  and  his  brother,  and  one 
parishioner,  "  Peter  Taylor,  the  keeper  of  the  public- 
house  at  which  the  presbytery  were  wont  to  dine." 
No  man  knew  and  no  minister  proved  better  than 
Dr.  Duff  that  Marnoch,  like  Auchterarder  and  Le- 
thendy,  was  but  a  symptom  of  a  disease  to  be  cured 
only  by  the  vis  medlcatrix  natarcG  of  the  case — by 
leaving  the  Church  to  the  laws  of  Christ  in  word  and 
conscience,  a  loyal  ally  of  the  state  but  independent 
in  the  purely  spiritual  sphere.  Dr.  Duff  respectfully 
declined  what  was  undoubtedly  intended  to  be  a  liberal 
and  generous  offer.  The  earl  replied  in  a  letter  ex- 
pressing admiration  of  the  consistency  and  self-sacrifice 
of  the  missionary.  But  the  old  companion  of  the  worst 
sovereign  England  has  seen,  turned  to  the  law  courts, 
where  a  majority  of  the  judges,  to  the  grief  of  men 
like  Jeffrey  and  Cockburn,  helped  him  and  his  reverend 
presentee  to  drive  every  member  from  the  kirk  to 
worship  God,  like  their  forefathers  in  persecuting  times, 
in  a  hollow  in  the  winter's  snow.  With  these  three 
typical  instances  we  dismiss  such  calls  to  home  work. 
How  was  not  only  the  Church  but  all  Scotland  to  be 
organized  for  the  permanent  and  progresGive  support, 
by  prayer  and  by  knowledge,  by  men  and  by  money, 
of  missionary  work  in  India  ?  That  was  the  problem 
which  had  occupied  the  thoughts  of  Duff  on  his  home- 
ward voyage,  "  when  rocked  amid  the  billows  of  a 
tempest  off  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,"  and  again  as  he 
paced  the  deck  on  the  return  of  health.  His  resolution 
was  formed  before  he  landed,  only  to  be  intensified  by 
the  early  indifference  of  the  committee  which  his  first 


312  LIFE   OF   DU.    DUFF.  1835. 

speecli  had  dissipated,  and  by  the  return  of  the  fever 
which  had  fired  his  spirit  anew.  It  was  "the  favourite 
plan  of  visiting  and  addressing  all  the  presbyteries  of 
the  Church  in  detail "  which  had  thus  forcibly  seized 
his  mind,  and  had  been  elaborated  and  prepared  for 
during  the  first  six  months  of  his  recovery.  Such  a 
proposition,  he  told  the  friends  of  the  India*  Mission 
in  1844,  when  its  success  had  been  established  and 
the  organization  had  to  be  renewed  on  a  greater  scale 
owing  to  the  disruption,  "was  received  in  those  days, 
even  by  the  most  sanguine,  with  grave  doubts  and 
fears  as  to  its  practicability,  and  by  others  with  an 
expression  of  stark  amazement.  *  What ! '  was  the 
ordinary  exclamation,  *  expect  presbyteries  of  the 
Church,  in  their  official  presbyterial  capacity,  to 
assemble  on  a  week-day  for  the  express  and  sole  end 
of  listening  to  an  exposition  of  the  motives,  obliga- 
tions and  objects  of  the  missionary  enterprise,  and  that 
too,  with  the  ulterior  view  of  organizing  themselves 
into  missionary  associations  ! ' — certain  well-known 
presbyteries,  both  in  the  north  and  in  the  south,  being 
usually  named,  in  regard  to  which  the  realization  of 
such  a  plan  was  felt  to  be  the  very  climax  of  improba- 
bility." 

From  his  own  mind  the  experience  of  Irvine,  and 
from  the  Church  his  Assembly  speech,  removed  every 
doubt.  Generally  preceding  Chalmers  in  the  church 
extension  movement  at  home,  with  a  thoroughness  and 
over  an  extent  of  country  possible  only  in  the  case  of 
one  who  devoted  to  it  his  whole  strength  and  unique 
experience.  Dr.  Dufi"  went  far  to  anticipate  the  greatest 
triumph  in  Christian  economics,  the  Sustentation 
Fund  for  the  ministers.  The  parallel,  the  necessary 
balance  and  support  of  that  fund,  is  the  system  of 
congregational  associations  under  similar  presbyterial 
supervision  for  the  missionaries  abroad. 


At.  29.  FOREIGN    MISSIONS  AEE    OF   NO   PAETY.  313 

But  the  essential  preliraiuary  to  all  success  liad  to 
bo  mado  known — foreign  missions  are  of  no  party. 
Thoy  are  the  care  and  the  corrective,  the  test  and  the 
stimulus  of  all  parties  in  the  Church.  The  missionary 
who,  as  such,  takes  a  side  in  ecclesiastical  warfare, 
may  gratify  his  own  personal  bias,  but  he  imperils  the 
cause  in  which  he  ought  to  be  absorbed.  The  missions 
of  the  Scottish  Church,  above  all,  originated  in  pure 
catholicity,  and  have,  even  through  the  disruption, 
been  directed  by  Christlike  charity.  Dr.  Inglis,  their 
founder,  was  a  moderate  by  association  and  an  evan- 
gelical in  spirit,  as  we  have  seen.  When  he  sought 
and  found  the  first  missionary  he  wrote  to  the  most 
pronounced  of  the  moderate  party — "As  to  his  sido  in 
the  Church  I  have  made  no  inquiry."  And  .t  will  be 
well  at  this  stage  to  ponder  the  fact,  as  the  key  to 
much  of  his  future  action,  that  that  missionary  thus 
early,  alike  in  his  friendlv  intercourse  with  and  help 
to  Dr.  Bryce,  in  his  loyalty  to  Dr.  Inglis  and  Dr. 
Brunton,  and  in  this  statement  of  his  ecclesiastical 
policy,  declared  the  superiority  of  himself,  because  of 
his  work,  to  all  party.  Thus  he  became  the  peace- 
maker, in  one  sense  of  the  beatitude,  at  home,  as  in 
the  higher  sense  his  work  in  India  of  reconciling  men 
to  God  won  him  abundantly  the  peacemaker's  blessed- 
ness. He  thus  described  the  success,  of  his  first 
campaign  of  1835-7,  and  the  cause  of  that  success. 
As  a  question  of  mere  statistics  he  raised  the  annual 
income  of  the  foreign  missions  scheme  from  £1,200  to 
£7,589  in  1838. 

"  My  journeyings  among  the  towns  and  presbyteries  of 
Scotland  were  soon  commenced,  amid  various  interruptions,  of 
longer  or  shorter  continuance,  arising  from  ill  health  and  other 
causes,  till  almost  every  town  and  district  from  the  Solway 
Firth  to  the  mainland  of  Orkney  had  been  visited,  and  many 
of  them  more  than  once, — and  almost  every  presbytery  of  the 


SH  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF,  1835. 

Church  addressed  and  organized  into  a  missionary  association. 
Throughout  tliese  extensive  and  diversified  visitations,  I  was 
received  with  equal  kindness  and  attention  by  all  classes  and 
ranks  in  society — in  the  baronial  residence  of  the  nobility,  and 
the  cottages  of  the  poor,  by  ministers  and  members  of  the 
moderate  and  evangelical  divisions  of  the  Church,  as  well  as 
by  leading  ministers  and  members  of  tli'^  dillerent  dissenting 
communions.  And  why  ?  For  this  chief  reason,  I  have  no 
doubt,  among  others,  that  no  one  Icnew  me  as  a  party  man — no 
one  being  able  to  point  his  fmger  to  a  single  overt  act  of  mine 
which  could  fairly  stamp  me  as  such.  Meetings  of  every 
description,  public  and  private.  Church  and  anti- Church,  In- 
trusion and  non-Intrusion,  were  held  in  all  directions  around 
me,  with  the  frequency  and  the  fulness  of  the  showers  of  an 
Indian  rainy  season  ;  and  yet,  up  to  the  hour  of  my  departure 
from  Scotland,  I  never  once  was  so  much  as  present  at  any  one 
of  them.  Everywhere,  accordingly,  was  I  received  in  my 
simple  and  single  character  as  a  missionary  to  the  heathen, 
pursuing,  with  undeviating  fixity  of  purpose,  my  own  chosen 
and  peculiar  vocation.  In  this  way  regions  and  habitations 
were  visited  that  had  never  been  invaded  by  the  sound  of  a 
missionary's  voice  before.  The  result  was,  that  a  great  deal 
of  new  information  was  communicated,  mucli  sympathy  and 
interest  in  behalf  of  India  excited,  and  not  a  little  of  hitherto 
unbroken  soil  reclaimed  for  missionary  purposes.  Everywhere 
Avt;re  large  and  liberal  collections  made,  prospective  obliga- 
tions voluntarily  undertaken,  and  permanent  associations, 
priBsbyterial  and  congregational,  special  and  general,  duly 
formed.  Ministers  and  other  office-bearers,  on  both  sides  of 
the  Church,  were  brought  into  immediate  friendly  and  co-oper- 
ative contact,  on  a  theme  wholly  exempt  from  the  intrusion  of 
party  jealousies,  rivalries,  and  antagonisms, — a  theme  which 
savoured  pre-eminently  of  the  Cross,  appealed  to  the  most 
generous  motives,  and  aimed  at  the  promotion  of  the  noblest 
ends.  Already  it  was  evident  that  a  better  understanding  and 
better  feeling  was  beginning  to  spring  up  between  various 
parties,  previously  marshalled  in  nmtual  opposition;  that 
these  parties  frequently  greeted  and  recognised  each  other 
on  more  cordial  terms,  frequently  visited  each  other  on 
a  more  friendly  footing,  and  frequently  assisted  each  other, 
on  sacramental  and  other  occasions,  iu  ways  that  promised  to 


JEt.  ir).    ACT  CREATING  FOKE ION  MISSION  ASSOCIATIONS.       315 

exert  a  mellowing  and  hallowing  influonco,  alike  on  pastors  and 
people.  Amid  scenes  and  expei-ieucos  like  those  how  could 
my  heart  bo  otherwise  than  glad  ?  How  could  I  help  rejoicing 
in  a  growing  ])rocess  of  convcrgency  and  assimilation?  How 
coidd  I  but  long,  with  prayerful  earnestness,  for  the  time, 
when  *  Ej)hraim  should  not  envy  Judali,  nor  Judah  vex 
l'ij)liraim  ;'  but  when  all,  merging  the  heats  and  tempers  of 
partizanship  in  the  divine  amplitude  of  the  Christian  spirit, 
should  unite,  on  the  broad  basis  of  a  common  fjiith  and  a 
common  charity,  in  extending  tho  etupiro  of  the  Itedeemer 
over  the  remotest  wilds  of  heathenism." 


Having  settled  his  family  in  the  old  mansion-houso 
of  Edradour,  within  a  mile  of  Pitlochrie,  lie  recruited 
liis  energies  there  during  June,  1835.  Meanwhile  tho 
Rev.  Dr.  Gordon,  as  secretary  of  the  committee,  was 
putting  in  force  the  short  Act  passed  by  the  General 
Assembly  recommending  all  presbyteries  to  givo 
Dr.  Duff  a  respectful  hearing  at  meetings  called  for 
the  pur})oso,  and  to  form  a  presbyterial  association  to 
create  in  each  congregation  an  agency  for  prayer  and 
the  propagation  of  intelligence  regarding  the  evangel- 
ization of  the  world.  This  Act  had  been  drawn  np  by 
Mr.  Makgill  Crichton,  of  Rankeillour,  in  the  back-room 
of  the  publishing  house  of  Waugh  and  Innes,  next  the 
Tron  kirk,  to  give  practical  eifect  to  the  enthusiasm 
created  in  the  Assembly  by  the  great  speech,  and  had 
been  unanimously  passed. 

Beginning  with  the  presbytery  of  Meigle,  the  first 
in  Strathraore  to  the  east  of  Perth,  Dr.  Duff  proceeded 
during  the  rest  of  the  year  in  regular  order  to  the 
north,  zigzagging  over  Forfar,  Arbroath,  Brechin, 
Montrose,  Aberdeen,  the  valleys  of  the  Dee  and  tho 
Don,  Old  Deer,  Peterhead,  and  Fraserburgh ;  then  west 
through  Strathbogie,  along  the  Spey,  and  through 
Banff,  Elgin,  and  Forreg  to  Inverness.  At  the  last  he 
spent  a  week,  but  he  generally  addressed  three  presby- 


3l6  LIFE   OP   DB.   DUPP.  1835. 

teries,  including  the  largo  congregations,  every  week, 
lie  then  went  northwards  to  the  presbyteries  of  Cha- 
iionry,  Dingwall  and  Tain,  still  in  addition  to  these 
addressing  large  congregations.  In  the  morning  ji 
the  day  on  which  he  was  to  leave  Tain  for  Dornojh, 
ho  was  suddenly,  while  at  breakfast  in  the  manse  of 
Dr.  Macintosh  (whose  mother  showed  him  all  manner 
of  motherly  attentions,  as  he  had  known  her  brother, 
Mr.  Calder,  and  others  in  Calcutta),  seized  with  a  fit  of 
fever  and  ague.  He  was  thus  obliged  to  betake  him- 
self to  bed,  which  he  was  unable  to  leave  for  three 
weeks.  All  the  arrangements  for  meeting  the  eastern 
presbyteries  of  Sutherland  and  Caithness  were  over- 
turned, and  the  only  one  that  could  bo  overtaken  ac- 
cording to  the  old  arrangement  was  that  of  Tongue  in 
the  Reay  country.  Ho  resolved  to  proceed  thither  di- 
rect across  Sutherland.  A  friend  conveyed  him  to  the 
manse  of  Mr.  MacGillivray,  at  the  lake  Lairg,  where 
he  remained  one  night,  and  met  there  young  Mr. 
MacGillivray,  minister  of  Strathy,  half-way  between 
Thurso  and  Tongue,  who  had  come  a  distance  of  nearly 
a  hundred  miles  to  convey  him  ^;0  Tongue.  There 
they  arrived  in  the  midst  of  a  snowstorm.  But  the 
hearts  of  the  people  were  warm.  Nowhere  did  he  meet 
with  a  more  hearty  reception.  From  Tongue  he  pro- 
ceeded eastward  along  the  coast  of  Thurso,  stopping 
one  night  with  Mr.  MacGillivray  to  address  his  people. 
On  that  occasion  one  of  the  old  peculiar  race  called 
*'  the  Men  "  spoke  a  few  words  at  the  close,  and  as 
he  was  speaking  down  came  a  heavy  pour  of  rain 
which  pattered  very  strongly  against  the  windows. 
For  a  moment  the  speaker  paused,  and  looking  gravely 
at  the  people  said  to  them  with  much  earnestness  in 
Gaelic :  **  My  brethren,  they  are  the  heavens  tuat  are 
weeping  over  the  sins  of  the  people,"  but  in  Gaelic 
the  phrase  was  much  more  expressive  than  any  trans- 


^t.  29-  EESULTS   OF   HIS   FIRST   CAMrAlON.  317 

lation  of  it  into  English  can  bo.  After  addressing 
tlio  presbyteries  of  Thurso,  Wick,  and  Dornoch,  as 
well  as  largo  congregations  connected  with  these 
places,  Dr.  DufF  returned  to  his  teni[)orary  home  in 
the  vale  of  Atholo  in  order  to  recruit  from  tlie 
exhaustion  of  six  niontlis  incessant  itinei-ating  and 
public  speaking.  ilow  thorougldy  even  the  most 
**  moderate  "  presbyteries  did  their  work  on  tliis  oc- 
casion is  seen  in  the  *'  Brief  Exposition  of  the  Church 
of  Scotland's  India  Mission,"  a  well-written  and 
elocpient  appeal  of  thirty-five  pages  by  the  presbytery 
of  Ellon,  for  tlie  formation  of  a  Foreign  Mission 
Association  in  every  parish  as  giving  to  the  interest 
taken  in  the  diffusion  of  the  gospel  a  fixed  and  per- 
manent character. 

If  Dr.  Duff  was  surprised  by  the  enthusiasm  which 
he  called  forth  in  his  first  tour,  the  result  of  the  second 
exceeded  even  that.  For,  to  the  fame  of  his  Assembly 
speech  there  was  now  added  the  bruit  of  his  eastern 
and  northern  triumphs.  And  he  opened  the  campaign 
of  1836  in  his  own  county  of  Perthshire.  Repeated 
attacks  of  his  old  fever,  in  spite  of  the  occasional 
retreat  to  Edradour,  forbade  the  physicians  to  allow 
him  to  think  of  returning  to  India.  But,  as  may  bo 
seen  from  this  extract  from  an  official  narrative  of  his 
proceedings  sent  to  the  committee  at  the  close  of 
1835,  his  heart  was  ever  in  India : — 

"  As  nearly  a  twelvemonth  has  passed  by  since  I 
reached  my  native  land,  I  naturally  begin  to  look  with 
a  longing  eye  towards  the  East.  Summer  is  the  best 
season  for  leaving  this  country.  But  if  it  be  resolved 
that  I  set  off  next  summer,  medical  opinion  conspires 
with  dire  experience  in  enforcing  on  me  the  conviction 
that  the  intervening  period  spent  in  almost  absolute 
repose  would  be  little  enough  so  to  recruit  my  frame 
as  to  entitle  me,  with  any  reasonable  prospect,  to  brave 


3l8  LIFE   OP  DR.    DUFF.  1836. 

anew  tlie  influence  of  a  tropical  climate.  On  the  other 
hand  much,  very  much,  might  yet  be  done  in  this  our 
native  land  in  behalf  of  the  mission.  Unless  it  be 
vigorously  supported  at  home  little  can  be  done 
abroad.  But  there  is  a  disposition  to  support  it  at 
home  wherever  its  claims  are  freely  and  intelligibly 
made  known.  The  experience  of  the  last  few  months, 
I  think,  has  amply  confirmed  this  assertion.  Of  course 
the  grand  advantage  (and  the  only  one  to  which  I  lay 
claim)  that  I  possess  in  advocating  the  claims  of  the 
mission  at  home,  is  one  that  cannot  be  communicated 
to  others,  even  that  of  having  been  on  the  field  of 
labour,  and  having  been  an  eye  and  ear  witness  of  all 
that  I  happen  to  describe.  It  is  this  circumstance 
mainly,  I  must  presume  (for  nothing  else  of  an  advan- 
tageous nature  am  I  conscious  of  possessing  beyond 
my  fellows),  that  has  made  our  brethren  and  the  mem- 
bers of  our  Church  generally  muster  everywhere  in 
such  numbers  and  listen  with  such  marked  attention 
and  resolve  with  such  admirable  unanimity.  It  was 
my  own  impression,  months  ere  I  landed  on  these 
shores,  that  good  might  result  from  visiting  the  pres- 
byteries of  our  Church.  But  that  impression  has  been 
deepened  in  a  tenfold  degree  by  the  experience  of  the 
last  four  months,  i.e.  if  professions  without  number  do 
not  turn  out  (which  God  forbid)  like  Dr.  Chalmers's 
exuberant  shower  of  promises.  About  a  third  part 
of  the  presbyteries  have  now  been  visited,  and  clearly 
the  other  two-thirds  could  not  be  visited  before  next 
summer,  or  if  so  such  visitation  would  leave  me  in  a 
condition  the  most  unfit  for  resuming  my  labours  in 
the  East,  but  it  seems  most  desirable  that  all  the  pres- 
byteries should  be  visited.  What  then  is  to  be  done  ? 
As  for  myself  I  am  in  a  sti  "t  between  two.  But  after 
having  thus  stated  the  case  I  leave  the  matter  entirely 
in  the  hands  of   the    committee."       Dr.  Macwhirter 


JEt  so.  BEGINS    niS    SECOND    CAMrAION.  319 

settled  tlie  matter  for  both  by  peremptorily  deciding, 
on  medical  grounds,  in  favour  of  a  less  active  and 
exciting  visitation  of  tlie  presbyteries. 

Very  vividly  are  the  impressions  of  the  first  visit  of 
Dr.  Duff  to  Perth  pictured  by  two  of  his  audience  at 
the  time,  Mrs.  Barbour,  then  a  child,  and  her  mother, 
Mrs.  Stewart  Sandeman,  of  Bonskeid,  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Moulin.  These  are  some  of  the  lines 
written  by  Mrs.  Sandeman  in  I80G  upon  Dr.  Duff  : — 

"  He  crossed  o'er  our  path  like  an  angel  of  light. 
The  sword  of  the  truth  in  his  grasp  gleaming  bright; 
O'er  mountain  and  valley  unwearied  he  flew 
Imploring  our  aid  for  the  poor  lost  Hindoo. 

"  The  rich  gorgeous  East  with  its  dark  Indian  grove 
Was  the  land  that  he  pled  for — all  pity  and  love ; 
But  we  caught  the  swift  glance  and  the  dear  mountain  tone. 
And  claimed  him  with  reverence  and  pride  for  our  own. 

"  Yes !  dark  Ben-i-vrackie,  all  rugged  and  wild. 
And  fair  vale  of  Athole,  yo  welcome  your  child, 
For  oft  have  his  thoughts  turned  in  fondness  to  you. 
While  he  toiled  for  the  soul  of  the  darkened  Hindoo. 

"  And  shall  we  not  aid  him  with  heart  and  with  hand 
To  ope  fountains  of  truth  in  that  desolate  land  ? 
Nor  break  the  witched  charm  that  he  over  us  threw 
While  in  anguish  he  pled  for  the  erring  Hindoo." 

"  The  arrival  of  Dr.  Duff  in  the  county  town  of  his 
native  Perthshire  was  a  memorable  event  to  most  of 
the  dwellers  in  it.  It  was  doubly  memorable  to  the 
children  who  got  a  holiday  to  go  and  hear  him  in  the 
East  Church  on  a  week-day.  Some  days  before,  the 
carriage  had  been  watched  as  it  conveyed  the  invalid 
missionary  to  the  crescent  facing  the  North  Inch, 
and  stopped  at  the  house  of  the  Rev.  William  Thom- 
son, for  whom  he  was  to  preach  in  the  Middle  Church. 
Reports  of  his  suffering  state  had  come  before  him. 


320  LIPE    OP    mi.    DUFF.  1836. 

Mrs.  Stuart,  of  Annat,  then  residing  in  Edinburgh, 
had  been  at  the  communion  in  Lady  Glenorchy's 
church.  She  came  home  enraptured  with  the  table- 
service,  at  which  a  stranger  had  presided.  His  voice 
had  seemed  hke  one  from  heaven,  and  he  looked  so  ill, 
as  if  he  might  have  passed  away  while  he  broke  the 
bread.     It  was  Dr.  Duff  who  had  arrived  from  India. 

"  It  was  no  wonder  that  the  deep  galleries  of  the  old 
Middle  Church  of  St.  John's,  Perth,  always  full,  were 
on  that  morning  crowded.  Even  the  seats  behind  the 
huge  pillars  were  eagerly  seized.  The  text  was,  *  Be 
not  conformed  to  this  world.'  While  the  preacher 
cut  right  and  left,  root  and  branch  at  the  worldliness 
in  the  Church  of  Christ,  he  described  how  men  and 
women  carried  it  into  God's  house,  and  could  be  seen 
stepping  down  the  aisle  with  a  look  so  proud  as  might 
make  an  archangel  blush.  Next  came  the  week-day 
address  on  the  claims  of  India.  Mr.  Esdaile,  the 
scholarly  minister  of  the  East  Church,  followed  by  the 
presbytery  and  other  ministers,  accompanied  Dr.  Duff 
to  the  pulpit  steps.  Some  had  made  a  tedious  journey 
to  be  there.  Even  the  children  in  the  multitude  that 
day  assembled  were  breathless  listeners.  The  gaunt 
figure  in  the  pulpit,  soon  rid  of  the  gown,  was  seen 
beneath  the  coloured  window  which  was  wont  to  come 
between  little  people  and  weariness  when  Mr.  Es- 
daile's  erudite  and  polished  discourses  went  beyond 
them.  And  now  the  eloquent  descriptions  of  the  far- 
off  land  began.  Snow-peaks,  dense  forests,  aromatic 
gardens  and  Ganges  waters  were  the  background.  The 
hideous  image  of  idolatry  arose  before  the  mind's  eye 
like  themonster  of  Nebuchadnezzar's  vision,  Brahmans, 
ftikeers  and  soodras  in  thousands  swarming  at  the 
base.  Each  arrowlike  sentence  of  appeal  for  help  was 
barbed  with  reproach  to  the  selfish  Britons  who  had 
come  home  rich  without  doing  anything  to  enlighten 


iCt.  30.    AN   OrrONENT  TO    THE    LAW   OF   GRAVITATION.       32 1 

the  natives  of  *poor,  plllnged,  ravaged,  unhappy 
India.'  When  all  was  over  the  missionary  sank  back 
exhausted,  and  had  to  rest  half-way  down  the  pulpit 
stairs.  One  at  least  of  the  young  who  had  heard  him 
had  to  seek  shelter  in  bed  on  returning  home,  to  hide 
the  marks  of  weeping,'  ready  to  join  on  the  morrow  in 
the  project  of  a  school  companion  whose  emotions  had 
taken  the  practical  shape  of  a  penny  a  week  subscrip- 
tion." 

Dr.  Duffs  host,  on  ^his  occasion,  was  the  Rev.  Dr. 
"William  Thomson,  whose  portly  figure  and  exalted 
character  used  to  strike  him  with  awe  when  ho  was 
a  boy  at  Perth  Academy.  In  his  own  field  of  genial 
scholarship  and  active  philanthropy  he  was  worthy 
of  his  more  famous  brother,  Andrew  Thomson  of  St. 
George's.  The  tremendous  strides  of  the  missionary, 
as  he  walked  with  her  father  to  the  top  of  Kinnoul 
hill,  so  alarmed  the  youngest  daughter,  now  Mrs. 
Omond  of  Monzie,  that  she  was  glad  when  he  stopped 
at  the  Tay  bridge  to  take  a  long  fond  look  of  the 
hills  among  which  his  father's  cottage  lay.  When,  in 
1863,  the  old  man  passed  away  at  the  age  of  ninety, 
Dr.  Duff,  then  still  in  India,  recalled  in  a  public  letter 
the  long  career  of  Dr.  William  Thomson,  and  declared 
that  his  had  been  "  one  of  the  happiest,  most  genial, 
and  alike  to  head  and  heart  most  exhilarating  domes- 
tic circles  in  Christendom." 

It  was  during  this  Perthshire  tour  that  Dr.  Guthrie, 
following  hard  on  Dr.  Duff's  track  in  the  cause  of 
church  extension,  found  this  trace  of  him  at  Abernyte. 
Mr.  Wilson,  the  minister  of  the  parish,  had  as  his  as- 
sistant that  James  Hamilton  who  became  an  accom- 
plished naturalist  and  Edward  Irving's  successor  in 
London.  But  Wilson  himself  was  an  opponent  of  Sir 
Isaac  Newton  in  the  law  of  gravitation.  It  grieved 
him  that  his  Church's  first  missionary  should  dream  of 

Y 


322  LIFE    or   DE.    DUFF.  1 836 

subverting  Hindooism  by  a  science  quite  as  false  as 
the  cosmogony  of  the  Yeds.  Dr.  Guthrie  attempted  to 
reason  with  the  animated  fossil,  and  then  pretended  to 
bo  so  far  convinced  as  to  ask  most  meekly  how  it  is 
that  the  people  of  the  antipodes  do  not  drop  off  into 
boundless  space.  "  AVell  sir,"  said  the  simple  oppo- 
nent of  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  "  they  keep  on  just  as  the 
flies  do  which  you  see  there  walking  along  the  ceil- 
ing." Some  of  the  a  'priori  objections  to  Dr.  Duff's 
evangelistic  system  of  education  were  quite  as  well 
founded. 

In  two  instances  only  did  the  Indian  missionary 
meet  with  rudeness.  One  occurred  under  circum- 
stances whicb  have  caused  the  event  to  be  traditional 
in  the  place.  Appealed  to  long  after  for  the  facts,  he 
thus  told  the  story.  The  presbytery  of  Dunbar  had 
been  summoned  to  meet  in  the  parish  kirk  of  the 
town.  Dr.  Duff  was  received  the  evening  before  the 
meeting  under  the  hospitable  roof  of  Mr.  Sawers.  On 
setting  out  to  visit  the  minister  of  the  kirk,  as  was  his 
first  duty,  he  was  gently  warned  that  his  reception 
might  not  be  very  cordial.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Jaffray,  he 
was  told,  was  notoriously  hostile  to  foreign  missions 
generally,  and  was  by  no  means  reconciled  to  those  of 
his  own  Ohui*ch.  This  did  not  deter  Dr.  Duff,  whose  . 
duty  it  plainly  was  to  show  courtesy  to  the  man  in 
whose  kirk  he  was  to  address  the  presbytery  and  the 
people.  After  some  hesitation  the  servant  admitted 
him,  and  he  followed  her  to  the  study  so  closely 
that  further  denial  was  impossible.  Mr.  Jaffray  stood 
up,  and  glaring  at  the  intruder  with  fury,  shouted  out 
in  tones  heard  by  the  passers-by  in  the  street  out- 
side, "  Are  you  the  fanatic  Duff  who  has  been  going 
about  the  country  beguiling  and  deceiving  people 
by  what  they  choose  to  call  missions  to  the  heathen  ? 
I    don't  want  to   see  you,  or  any  of    your  descrip- 


^t.  30.  THE    BRAHMAN   OF   DUNDAR.  323 

tiou.  I  want  no  Indian  snake  brou^lifc  in  araonof 
my  people  to  poison  their  minds  on  sucli  subjects ; 
so  as  I  don't  want  to  see  yon  tlie  sooner  you  make 
off  the  better."  Dr.  Duff  stood  calm  and  impertur- 
bable for  a  little,  and  then,  breaking  he  silence,  said 
that  he  had  come  merely  to  show  him  courtesy  as  the 
minister  of  the  parish  and  an  ordained  minister  of  the 
Established  Church,  as  both  of  them  were.  As  he 
must  be  aware  to-morrow  the  meeting  of  presbytery 
was  to  be  held  in  his  church,  he,  Dr.  Duff,  thought  it 
only  due  to  him  to  show  this  tribute  of  respect  and 
courtesy.  With  permission  therefore  Dr.  Duff  very 
briefly  would  tell  him  the  nature  and  object  of  his 
visit  to  Dunbar  under  the  sanction  and  recommen- 
dation of  the  General  Assembly.  He  did  so  very 
briefly  because  he  saw  in  Mr.  Jaffray's  countenance 
that  the  churl  was  all  the  while  in  wrathful  agony. 

When  Dr.  Duff  ended,  he  said  he  had  nothing  more 
to  explain  and  would  now  retire.  "  By  all  means,"  the 
reply  was,  in  a  surly  tone,  *'  the  sooner  the  better.  I 
never  want  to  see  your  face  again  on  earth.  I  was  no 
party  to  the  meeting  to-morrow.  The  presbytery  had  a 
perfect  right  to  fix  on  my  church;  but  as  for  me,  I  had 
nothing  to  do  with  it ;  I  shall  not  go  near  the  meeting, 
for  T  hate  the  s>ibjcct,i  and  might  almost  .say  the  same 
thinof  of  him  who  has  been  the  means  of  callinof  such 
a  meeting  to  disturb  the  feelings  of  my  people  and  in- 
troduce what  may  be  new  strifes  and  divisions  among 
us."  Dr.  Duff,  in  a  single  sentence,  said  ho  hoped 
and  trusted  it  would  turn  out  otherwise,  since  the 
blessed  Saviour's  command  was,  "  Go  into  all  the  world, 
and  preach  the  gospel  to  every  creature,"  and  the 
present  was  but  a  humble  attempt  on  the  part  of  the 
Established  Church  of  Scotland  to  obey  this  partiiig 
and  imperative  commission.  All  this  time  both  were 
standing  in  the  middle  of  the  floor;  so  Dr.  Duff,  respect- 


3^4  LIFE   OP  DU.    DUFF.  1836. 

fully  bowing,  bade  him  good-night,  and  retired  to  his 
congenial  quarters.  That  evening  Dr.  Duff  said  no- 
thing, except,  in  answer  to  a  question,  stating  in 
general  terms  that  the  warning  Mr.  Sawers  had  given 
had  not  been  in  vain.  Next  day,  however,  he  was 
everywhere  met  by  parties  personally  unknown  to 
him,  who  condoled  with  him  on  the  strange  recep- 
tion given  to  him  by  their  minister.  "  The  truth 
is,"  they  said,  "  wo  expected  nothing  cordial,  but  we 
never  dreamed  that  he  would  stoop  to  such  rudeness." 
After  this  ]\Ir.  Jaffray  very  generally  throughout  the 
bounds  of  the  Church,  when  this  remarkable  incident 
became  known,  went  under  the  name  of  the  Brahman  of 
Dunbar.  Tbe  intention  was  to  indicate  his  barbarous 
rudeness,  but  the  greatest  injustice  was  thus  in  Ignor- 
ance done  to  the  Brahmans  of  India,  more  particularly 
the  learned  and  studious  class,  who  are  among  the 
most  courteous  and  gentlemanly  persons  to  be  met 
with. 

By  this  time  the  effect  of  Dr.  Duff's  work  in  Scot- 
land had  spread  across  the  border,  influencing  churches 
and  societies  in  England.  When  in  the  midst  of 
his  organization  of  associations  in  Perthshire,  ho 
was  pressed  by  mi«ny:  and  repeated  invitations 
from  the  great  missionary  and  religious  societies  in 
London  to  address  them  in  the  coming  month  of 
May.  Even  those  who  had  most  ignorantly  objected 
to  his  Assembly  oration  of  1835,  that  it  did  not  re- 
present the  operations  of  other  Christians  in  India, 
had  by  this  time  discovered,  alike  from  his  provincial 
addresses  and  the  repre^,entations  of  their  agents  in 
Bengal,  the  catholicity  of  his  spirit  and  the  extent  of 
his  zealous  co-operation  with  all  the  Protestant  mis- 
sionaries in  Calcutta  and  the  neighbourhood.  Espe- 
cially was  this  the  case  with  the  Church  Missionary 
Society,   the   noble   evangelical    organization   of    the 


JEt.  30.  niS    FIGST   EXETER   HALL    ORATION.  325 

Cliurch.  of  England,  whose  representatives  in  Bengal, 
Doaltry,  Corrio  and  Sandys  had  been  his  most  inti- 
mate fellow-workers.  His  response  to  that  society's 
earnest  appeal  to  address  its  annual  meeting  in  Ma 
was  the  beginning  of  a  relation  which,  as  we  shall  see, 
became  closer  and  more  loving  on  both  sides  till  the 
end.  Never  before  had  the  directors  deemed  it  expe- 
dient to  go  out  of  their  own  episcopal  circle  to  find 
speakers,  till  Dr.  Duff  was  thus  enabled  to  return,  on 
a  wider  scale,  the  kindness  of  Dealtry  and  Corrio  to 
himself  when  he  first  landed  in  Bengal.  When  the 
meeting  was  held  in  London  he  found  himself  on  the 
platform  seated  between  the  Bishops  of  Chester  and 
Winchester.  When  the  latter  had  spoken  the  young 
Presbyterian  apostle  rose,  and  so  addressed  them  that 
the  interest  and  emotion  of  the  vast  audience  continued 
to  increase  till  he  sat  down  amid  a  tempest  of  enthu- 
siastic applause.  We  have  no  report  of  this  effort 
beyond  its  effect,  which  the  Bishop  of  Chester  indicated 
when,  following  Dr.  Duff  after  a  long  pause,  he  declared 
with  characteristic  gravity  that  he  had  waited  until  the 
gush  of  emotion  excited  by  the  preceding  speaker  had 
been  somewhat  assuaged.  When  all  was  over,  among 
otlidrs  the  ^godtyMr.  C^arws,  one  of  Mie  deans  :of  Trinity 
College,  Cambridge,  introduced  himself  to  Dr.  Duff, 
and  at  once  exacted  the  promise  that  the  missionary 
would  accompany  himself  in  a  day  or  two  on  a  visit 
to  the  University. 

Other  circumstances  apart,  the  peculiar  interest 
of  this  visit  to  Cambridge  lies  in  the  meeting  for  the 
first  and  last  time  of  the  aged  Simeon  and  the  young 
Duff.  Simeon  was  within  a  few  months  of  his  death, 
but  even  after  half  a  century's  labours  for  the  Master, 
in  England  and  Scotland  and  for  India,  he  was  appa- 
rently in  health  and  vigour.  He  and  Dr.  Duff  had  what 
the  latter  afterwards  described  as  "  a  very  prolonged 


326  LIFE   OP  DR.    DUFP.  1836, 

scdenint.**  He  was  full  of  questions  regarding  India 
and  its  missions,  for  which  ho  had  done  so  much 
all  that  time.  And  we  may  be  sure  that,  among  the 
other  topics  which  occupied  that  memorable  conversa- 
tion, the  Moulin  revival  was  not  forgotten.  We  have 
already  traced  the  spiritual  ancestry  of  Duff  to  Simeon, 
from  the  journal  of  the  latter,  written  in  179G,  when 
the  events  occurred.  The  record  of  them,  or  the  talk 
about  them  forty  years  after  by  the  venerable  saint  and 
his  own  son  in  the  faith,  the  evangelical  Anglican  and 
the  evangelical  Presbyterian,  it  is  now  possible  for  us 
to  recall  from  Duff's  talk  afterwards. 

"What  during  the  conversation  gave  Simeon  such 
profound  interest  in  the  Moulin  revival  of  179G  was 
the  remembrance  of  his  own  share  in  the  quickening. 
His  host,  Mr.  Stewart,  the  parish  minister,  was  then 
a  comparatively  young  man,  an  excellent  and  accom- 
plished scholar,  but  without  any  evidence  of  true  piety. 
Ho  was  of  a  frank  and  cheerful  disposition,  and  was  a 
great  favourite  with  the  people,  for  whom  he  had  always 
a  kind  word.  His  life,  as  written  by  Dr.  Sieveright,  of 
Markinph,  shows  how  by  degrees  he  became  unhappy, 
from  the  conviction  that  there  was  something  real  in 
Christianity  which  he  did  not  possess  and  had  not 
discovered.  The  exceeding  honesty  of  his  intellectual 
nature  showed  itself  thus,  as  one  present  told  Dr.  Duff. 
Mr.  Stewart  had  read  the  preliminary  psalm  at  public 
worship  in  the  church  on  the  Lord's-day,  and  w^is 
about  to  give  out  his  text,  when  he  leaned  over  the  book 
board,  and  looking  round  with  a  saddened,  piercing 
eye  on  his  congregation,  he  said  to  them  in  substance  : 
"  My  brethren,  I  am  bound  in  truth  and  faithfulness  to 
tell  you  that  I  feel  myself  to  be  in  great  ignorance  and 
much  blindness  on  the  subject  of  vital  religion.  I  feel 
like  one  groping  in  the  dark  for  light,  and  as  yet  I 
have  found  none.     But  I  think  it  right  to  tell  you, 


^.t.  30.    HIS   ACCOUNT   OF   SIMEON's   VISIT  TO   MOULIN.      327 

tliat  if  God  in  mercy  will  give  me  any  measure  of  the 
tnie  Ufjht,  joyfully  shall  I  impart  the  same  to  you.  Do 
you  therefore,  all  of  you,  pray  God  fervently  that  lie 
may  be  pleased  to  bescow  upon  me  the  tnio  litjlttf  or 
such  portions  of  it  as  He  may  deem  fit  for  me." 

An  announcement  of  so  novel  and  startling  a  kind, 
indicating  such  simplicity  and  godly  sincerity,  could 
not  but  produce  a  profound  sensation.  The  news 
rapidly  spread,  not  only  through  the  parish  but 
through  the  surrounding  country.  One  of  the  con- 
sequences was  that  many  even  of  the  most  careless 
and  ungodly  were  wont  to  go  every  Lord's-day  to 
church  in  the  expectation  of  hearing  that  the  minister 
had  found  what  he  called  the  true  light.  Still  Aveeks 
and  months  passed  without  any  discovery  being  made 
to  him.  At  last  it  so  happened  that  Mr.  Simeon, 
of  Cambridge,  and  the  Rev.  James  Haldane,  of  the 
Tabernacle;  Edinburgh,  had  arranged  to  make  an 
extensive  tour  through  the  north  of  Scotland,  preach- 
ing the  gospel  as  they  might  find  opportunity.  On 
a  Thursday  they  had  arranged  from  Dunkeld  to 
visit  Blair- Athole,  about  twenty  miles  distant.  They 
had  to  stop  at  Pitlochrie,  which  is  about  half-way. 
At  that  time  there  was  a  small  country  inn  there.  Ou 
arrival  they  told  the  innkeeper  that  as  early  as  he 
could  manage  it '  they  wanted  a  couple  of  horses  to 
take  them  to  Blair- Athole.  **  Na,  na,"  said  the  inn- 
keeper, "  this  is  our  fast  day,  as  the  sacrament  is  to  be 
held  next  Sabbath,  and  we  regard  the  fast  day  like 
another  Sabbath,  and  we  do  not  hire  horses  or  vehicles 
on  the  Lord's-day."  '*  Well,"  said  Simeon,  "  I  suppose 
there  is  worship  in  the  parish  church  to-day  ?  "  "  Oh, 
yes,"  said  the  innkeeper,  naming  the  hour.  "  Well," 
said  Simeon,  "  though  this  in  one  respect  is  a  disap- 
pointment to  us,  it  may  be  that  in  some  other  respects, 
as  yet  unknown  to  us,  God  may  have  some  gracious 


328  LIFE   OP   DR.   DUFF.  1836. 

design  in  it,  so  let  us  go  at  once  to  tlio  English  worship 
at  Moulin."  Towards  the  evening  of  the  day,  after  all 
the  services,  English  and  Gaelic,  were  ended.  Simoon 
and  Ilaldano  resolved  to  call  at  the  manse  and  see  the 
minister,  who  received  them  with  great  heartiness. 
After  some  converse  Mr.  Simeon,  from  his  sage, 
spiritual  experience,  could  not  but  notice  there  were 
internal  workings  in  the  soul  of  Stewart  which  to  him 
looked  like  the  incipient  influence  of  divine  grace.  Mr. 
Stewart  was  greatly  refreshed  by  Mr.  Simeon's  con- 
verse, and  in  parting  with  both  in  the  evening  he  said 
to  them,  "You  can  see  every  tiling  that  is  worth  seeing 
in  and  about  Blair- Athole  by  Saturday  afternoon; "  so  ho 
implored  them  both  to  come  to  the  manse  on  Saturday 
evening,  attend  the  church  on  Sabbath,  and  partake  or 
not  partake,  as  they  thought  proper,  of  the  sacrament. 
Mr.  Stewart  said  that  as  minister  of  the  parish  he  would 
be  expected  to  preach  what  the  Scotch  were  in  the  habit 
of  calling  the  "action  sermon  " — sermon  before  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  sacrament — but  that  on  sacrament 
Sunday  they  had  always  public  service  in  the  church 
in  the  evening,  as  the  people's  haarts  were  then 
surcharged  with  feelings  of  love  and  pious  emotion. 
That  sermon  Mr.  Stewart  asked  Mr.  Simeon  to  preach. 
Simeon  agreed,  and  it  is  very  remarkable  how  that 
sermon  was  blessed  of  God  as  the  signal  instrument 
of  opening  Mr.  Stewart's  eyes  to  discern  the  h^ue  lujlit 
of  the  everlasting  gospel. 

His  own  declaration  w  .s,  that  about  the  middle  of  the 
sermon  Mr.  Simeon,  who  had  evidently  studied  his  case 
and  endeavoured  to  adapt  as  much  of  the  discourse  as 
was  practicable  to  it,  uttered  a  few  sentences  which  to 
Mr.  Stewart  looked  like  a  revelation  from  heaven.  His 
own  significant  expression  was,  that  it  seemed  as  if 
the  dense  cloud  canopy  which  had  hitherto  inter- 
posed between  his  soul  and  the  vision  of  God  in  Christ 


JEt  30.         HIS   ACCOUNT   OP  THE    MOULIN   REVIVAL.  329 

roconciliTig  a  guilty  world  to  Himself,  had  suddenly 
burst  asunder,  and  through  the  chink  a  stream  of  light 
had  como  down  direct  from  heaven  into  his  soul,  dis- 
placing the  darkness  which  had  hitherto  brooded  over 
it,  filling  it  with  light,  and  enabling  him  to  rejoice  with 
exceeding  great  joy.  He  was  wont,  also,  to  add,  that 
in  spite  of  partial  obscurations  afterwards,  this  light 
never  wholly  left  him,  but  continued  to  anini'ite, 
cheer  and  guide  him  through  all  his  ministerial  and 
other  labours.  On  the  following  Lord's-day  Mr. 
Stewart  was  enabled  joyfully  to  announce  publicly 
from  the  pulpit,  that  the  light  which  ho  sought 
for  and  waited  for  from  heaven  had  at  last  dawned 
upon  him  and  filled  his  soul  with  gladness ;  he  would 
therefore  proceed  Sabbath  after  Sabbath  to  give  out 
as  much  of  it  as  he  could  to  his  own  people  and  others 
who  might  choose  to  be  present.  He  then  commenced 
a  series  of  discourses  on  the  3rd  chapter  of  St.  John's 
Gospel,  which  awakened,  aroused  and  enlightened 
numbers  of  the  people.  Parties  were  wont  to  como 
every  Sabbath  from  all  the  surrounding  parishes,  so 
that  the  work  became  very  extensive,  and  proved  a 
mighty  revival,  in  which  scores  of  the  previously  care- 
less, indifferent  and  godless  became  genuine  converts 
to  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  and  continued  so  all  their 
days.  Yea,  instead  of  diminishing,  their  light  went 
on  increasing  and  abounding.  However  humble  in 
their  circumstances,  however  illiterate,  their  souls  be- 
came replenished  with  the  truths  of  the  Bible,  so  as  to 
become  burning  and  shining  lights  to  all  around  them. 
All  this  will  account  for  the  deep  interest  felt  by 
Mr.  Simeon  when  Dr.  Duff  called  upon  him,  as  tho 
father  and  mother  of  the  missionary  when  young 
and  unmarried  came  more  or  less  under  the  arous- 
ing influences  of  the  great  revival.  About  three  or 
four  months  after  this  Mr.  Simeon  was  called  to  his 


33^  LIFK   OP  Dll.   DUFF.  1836. 

eternal  reward,  but  tliougli  ho  rests  from  his  Libours, 
his  works,  in  many  of  their  blessed  and  fruitful 
spiritual  consequences,  do  still  follow  him.  Such 
is  substantially  Dr.  Duff's  account  of  what  he  had 
hoard  of  the  ^loulin  revival,  and  of  what  Simeon  and 
ho  had  talked  over  in  Cambridge.  The  Baptist  Carey, 
the  Anglican  Simeon,  the  IVloderato  Inglis,  and  the 
Evangelical  Chalmers,  united  with  such  Congrega- 
tionalist  contemporaries  as  Urquhart  and  Lacroix  to 
link  Duff  into  a  truly  apostolical  succession,  divided 
by  no  party  and  confined  to  no  sect. 

As  the  guest  of  Cams  at  Cambridge,  Dr.  DufT  occu- 
pied the  rooms  in  which  Sir  Isaac  Newton  made  many 
of  his  most  remarkable  discoveries  in  optics.  The  old 
St.  Andrews  student  revelled  in  associations  in  which 
no  college  in  the  world  is  more  rich.  For  Trinity, 
which  Henry  VIII.  founded  and  his  daughters  en- 
riched, had  been  the  nursery  not  only  of  the  Church's 
most  learned  prelates  and  theologians,  but  of  Bacon 
as  well  as  Newton,  of  Jowlcy  and  Dry  don  and  Andrew 
Mar  veil.  When  dining  daily  in  the  common  hall  with 
the  professors  and  students,  he  had  much  converse 
with  Whewoll,  who  was  master  from  1841,  when  he  suc- 
ceeded Christopher  Wordsworth,  to  18G6  when  he  was 
followed  by  "  Jupiter  "  Thompson,  the  present  master. 
But  what  interested  him  most  of  all,  after  the  living 
Simeon,  was  the  collection  of  the  Milton  MSS.  in  the 
museum  of  the  college.  There  he  saw  the  list,  in  Mil- 
ton's own  hand,  of  the  hundred  titles,  or  more,  which 
the  poet  had  jotted  down  on  returning  from  Italy,  in 
his  thirty-first  year,  as  possible  subjects  of  a  great 
English  poem.  There  "  Paradise  Lost  "  appears  at  the 
head  of  them  all,  and  also  four  drafts  of  it  for  dramatic 
treatment,*  the  drama  to  open,  as  the  poet's  nephew 

*  See  Professor  Masson's  perfect  Globe  Edition  of  The  Poetical 
Works  of  John  Milton  0877),  page  11. 


JEt  30.  CAMBRIDOE   ASSOCIATIONS   OP   MILTON.  ^^  I 

Pliillips  tells  US,  with  Satan's  speech  on  first  beliolding 
the  glories  of  the  new  world  and  the  sun,  as  now 
given  near  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  book  of  the 
epic. 

Ever  in  the  midst  of  his  absorbing  talks  with  Simeon 
and  Cams  about  missions,  Dr.  DufT  was  constrained  by 
the  fjc]ilii.H  loci  to  think  of  Milton.  When  walking  by  tho 
Cam,  on  one  occasion,  he  expressed  surprise  that  no  re- 
gular Cambridge  student  had  then  offered  his  services 
as  a  missionary.  Cams,  in  reply,  drew  his  attention  to 
tho  exceeding  beauty  of  the  spot ;  to  the  loveliness 
of  the  grounds  and  their  adornments  ;  to  the  banks  of 
the  Cam  witli  their  grotesque  variety  of  flowers,  tho 
willow  trees  overlianging  tho  stream,  the  umbrageous 
shade  cast  by  other  trees  on  the  footpaths  along  tho 
lawns,  seats  to  invite  the  student  to  enjoy  his  favourite 
books ;  to  tho  exquisite  order  in  which  all  things  wero 
kept.  All  this,  said  Cams,  tended  insensibly  to 
act  on  human  nature,  and  produce  an  intensely  re- 
fined and  luxurious  state  of  mind,  with  corresponding 
tastes  and  predilections  from  which  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  wean  the  student  so  as  to  induce  him  to 
,  become  a  voluntary  exile  to  distant  shores  teeming 
with  the  abominations  of  heathenism.  The  remark, 
Dr.  Dufi"  replied,  had  some  force  in  it,  in  the  case 
of  the  old  nature.  But  this  ought  not  to  present 
difficulties  to  the  child  of  God,  who  professed  to  act 
by  faith  and  not  by  sight.  Whoever  was  resolute  of 
purpose  as  a  son  of  God,  would  find  divine  grace 
more  than  sufficient  to  wean  him  not  only  from  tho 
academic  illusions  of  Cambridge,  but  from  ail  the 
world  besides.  But  then,  turning  to  the  river  at  their 
side,  he  exclaimed  in  the  lines  of  the  exquisite  Lycidas, 
the  memorial  poem  which  Milton  wrote  on  the  death 
of  Edward  King,  his  fellow-student  at  Christ's  Col- 
lege : — 


332  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1836. 

"Next,  Camus,  reverend  sire,  went  footing  slow. 
His  mantle  hairy  and  Lis  bonnet  sedf^e, 
Inwrought  with  figures  dim,  and  on  the  edge 
Like  to  that  sanguine  flower  inscribed  with  woe. 
'  Ah  !  who  hath  reft/  quoth  he,  '  my  dearest  pledge  ?  '  ** 

At  that  time  Mr.  Cams  could  not  venture  to  call 
a  public  missionary  meeting  in  the  college,  but  the 
Major  presided  over  a  great  gathering  of  students 
and  citizens  in  the  town-hall,  whom  Dr.  Duff  addressed 
at  length  on  India  and  its  missions.  From  Cambridge 
he  went  to  Leamington,  where  he  gained  some  advan- 
tage from  the  treatment  of  the  then  celebrated  Dr. 
Jephson.  Having  avoided  the  excitement  of  the 
General  Assembly  of  1836,  ho  thus  spent  the  summer 
in  England.  But  on  his  return  to  Scotland  in  autumn, 
to  complete  his  organization  of  the  presbyteries  and 
congregations,  he  was  sternly  ordered  by  the  physicians 
to  rest  at  Edradour.  Rest  for  him  was  impossible. 
He  induced  them  to  wink  at  occasional  raids,  made 
for  three  or  four  weeks  at  a  time,  in  different  directions 
from  that  centre.  Thus  the  months  passed  till  the 
General  Assembly  of  1837. 

During  all  his  wanderings  north  and  south.  Dr.  Duff 
kept  up  a  close  correspondence  with  his  colleagues, 
Messrs.  Mackay  and  Ewart,  in  Calcutta,  and  with 
other  frib.ids  of  the  mission  there.  He  was  a  keen 
observer  of  public  affairs  in  the  closing  days  of  Lord 
William  Bentinck's  administration,  and  the  opening 
promise  of  that  of  Lord  Metcalfe,  whom  the  jealous 
Court  of  Directors  refused  to  appoint  permanent 
Governor-General.  Of  how  much  that  was  most  bril- 
liant and  abiding  in  these  times  could  we  not  say  that 
he  had  been  a  part  ?  How  he  explained  to  the  English 
public  the  exact  meaning  of  Lord  Wil.  m's  educational 
minutes  of  1835,  in  his  "  New  Era  of  the  English 
Language,"    wo    have   told.      The   following   extract 


JEt.  30.  NATIVE    CHEISTIANS   AS    PHYSICIANS.  333 

from  an  official  letter  to  the  committee,  gives  us  his 
impressions  of  the  other  great  triumph  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Bengal  Medical  College  : — 

"  Eduadour,  IWb  July,  1835. 
"  I   have  just  received  a  letter    from  an   intimate 
friend   in   Calcutta,  Mr.  J.  Nelson,    attorney  of   tho 
Supreme  Court,  and  now  a  member  of  our  correspond- 
ins:  board.     Ho  writes  : — 


*  You  will  f reqv -^ntly  have  heard  that  the  school  is  doing 
well.  Within  the  last  few  days  a  prospect  has  been  opened  up 
likely  to  be  very  beneficial  to  it.  I  allude  to  an  entirely  new 
construction  of  the  medical  school  with  which  Dr.  Tytler  was 
connected,  which  has  been  placed  under  Dr.  ]3raniley,  who  is 
to  receive  boys  from  the  various  seminaries,  qualified  by  their 
knowledge  of  English  to  become  pupils  for  education  in 
medicine.  He  states  that  in  tho  formation  of  his  plan,  ho 
particularly  looked  forward  to  our  seminary  for  a  supply,  and 
at  a  visit  he  made  to  it  the  other  day  he  found  a  number  of 
boys  most  Avilling  to  go  to  him,  I  think  there  can  be  no 
differences  of  opinion  as  to  the  advantages  likely  to  accrue  by 
this  opening  for  the  young  men.  It  is  true  that  the  primary 
object  we  have  in  view  is  the  endowing  them  with  a  know- 
ledge of  Christianity,  and  sending  them  forth  as  teachers  and 
preachers  amongst  their  benighted  countrymen ;  but  it  is  easy 
to  perceive  that  for  many  years  persons  so  sent  forth  would 
require  to  be  supported  by  our  funds,  and  wq  have  not  the 
means  of  doing  so  except  to  a  limited  few.  Besides,  it  appears 
to  me  to  bo  hit^hly  valuable  to  have  a  portion  of  native  Chris- 
tians as  laymen,  interspersed  among  the  brethren,  particularly 
in  such  a  respectable  character  as  that  of  a  doctor;  for  it  is  not 
intended  that  they  shall,  when  qualified,  be  drafted  out  to  tho 
army.  On  the  contrary,  they  are  to  receive  the  education 
and  thereafter  to  have  a  free  control  in  the  exercise  of  their 
knowledge  and  talents,  in  such  way  and  manner  as  they  may 
respectively  think  proper.  The  jail  of  tho  Court  having  been 
vacated,  Dr,  Bramley  has  applied  for  it,  and  I  believe  I  may 
say  that  Government  have  agreed  to  give  it  for  a  small  renti 
one  portion  to  be  occupied  by  our  school,  and  the  other  by  his 


334  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1836. 

medical  seminary,  whereby  sucli  of  our  pupils  as  fancy  medi- 
cine will  be  completing  themselves  in  the  higher  branches 
of  education,  at  the  same  time  that  they  are  receiving  medical 
instruction.' 

"  Of  the  intention  of  Government  to  remodel  the 
old  native  medical  institution  in  Calcutta  I  was  fully 
aware  upwards  of  two  years  ago.  Dr.  Tytler,  at  the 
head  of  it,  and  his  coadjutors  were  of  the  old  school 
of  orientalists,  who  strenuously  upheld  the  necessity 
of  communicating  all  ^  \iropean  science  to  the  natives 
throuG^h  the  medium  of  the  learned  lano^uaGfes  of  the 
East.  The  decisive  experiments  of  the  last  few  years 
in  Calcutta  have  tended  entirely  to  explode  this  opinion, 
and  leave  it  a  refuge  only  in  the  minds  of  a  few  of  the 
old  orientalists.  In  remodelling  the  medical  school, 
the  grand  controverted  question  was,  whether,  as 
heretofore,  the  knowledge  should  be  conveyed  to 
Mussulmans  in  Arabic  and  Hindoos  in  Sanscrit,  or 
Avhether  it  should  not  be  conveyed  to  both  through 
the  medium  of  En2:lish.  A  Government  committee 
was  appointed  to  receive  and  examine  evidence  from 
all  quarters,  and  thtxi  submit  a  formal  report  to  the 
supreme  Government.  The  three  most  active  men 
in  this  committee  were  Mr.  Trevelyan,  the  deputy 
political  secretary;  Dr.  J.  Grant,  the  writer  of  the 
account  of  the  last  examination  of  our  Institution,  and 
Dr.  Bramley.  Being  all  intimate  friends  of  my  own, 
I  was  from  time  to  time  appr.  "ed  of  the  progress  and 
results  of  their  inquiries  ;  to  u^^out  fifty  questions 
relative  to  the  state  and  prospects  of  English  educa- 
tion in  Bengal,  I  gave  a  lengtheied  reply  in  writing. 
Before  I  left  India  this  report  was  finally  completed, 
and  being  favoured  with  a  perusal  of  that  part  which 
related  to  the  question  of  general  education,  I  had  the 
satisfaction  to  perceive  that  tlie  new  views  on  this 
subject  were  recommended  in  such  a  way  as  to  insure 


Mt  30.  LETTER   TO  DE.   EWAET.  335 

tlieir  adoption  on  the  part  of  Government.     And  glad 
I  am,  for  tlie  sake  of  our  Institution  and  for  the  real 
welfare  of  India,  that  this  has  been  the  consummation. 
The  superintendence  of  the  medical  school  being  taken 
from  Dr.  Tytler,  the  champion  of  antiquated  opinions, 
and  given  to  Dr.  Bramley,  the  enlightened  supporter 
of  sounder  views,  furnishes  a  guarantee  of  indefinite 
future  good  to   India,  as  it  is  the  test  of  the  triumph 
of  enlightened    principles   and  measures    among   the 
powers  that  be     .     .     Two  Calcutta  letters  have  just 
reached  me  by  the  morning  post,  the  one  from  JMr. 
Trevelyan  detailing  the   stops  relative  to  the  medical 
institution,  the  other,  consisting  of  not  less  than  four 
sheets,  from  Dr.  Bryce.     'J^he  doctor  seems  really  to 
be  most  enthusiastic  in  our  cause." 

"  London,  22iid  Juno,  1836. 

"My  Dear  Ewart, — I  cannot  possibly  describe  to 
yon  the  Intenscness  of  interest  which  our  mission 
now  excites  in  our  native  land.  The  eyes  of  all  Scot- 
land are  now  upon  you.  Oh,  that  God  in  His  mercy 
would  pour  out  Ilis  Spirit  and  seal  home  the  truth  to 
the  hearts  of  numbers,  yea,  thousands  of  the  perishing 
heathen !  I  had  once  cherished  fondly  the  hope  that 
this  summer  I  would  be  retracing  my  steps  to  India. 
This,  however,  I  find  to  be  an  impossibility  ;  the  truth 
is,  that  the  labours  at  home,  into  which  I  was  im- 
pelled for  the  sake  of  arousing  the  Christian  public, 
have  retarded  the  progress  of  my  recovery,  and 
reduced  me  to  the  lowest  state  of  exhaustion.  From 
this  it  will  require  some  time  to  recover,  and  yet  ray 
work  at  home  is  not  ended.  The  only  thing  that 
reconciles  mc  to  the  detention  in  my  native  land,  is  the 
assured  fact  that  God  has  been  pleased  to  employ  me 
as  an  humble  instrument  in  stirring  up  the  slumbering 
zeal  of  our  Church,  and  that  the  instrumentality  haa 


33^  LIFE   OP   DE.    DUFF.  1836. 

been  crowned  witli  a  success  wliich  I  never,  never, 
never  anticijiated  I  Thanks  be  to  God  for  all  His  un- 
deserved mercies. 

*'  1  now  understand  the  mystery  of  Providence  in 
sending  mc  from  India.  What  between  vile  politics 
and  fierce  voluntaryism  our  cause  was  well  nigh  being 
entirely  engulfed  in  oblivion.  At  first  I  could  scarcely 
get  from  any  one  or  in  any  place  a  patient  hearing. 
Now,  if  I  had  a  thousand  tongues,  they  might  simul- 
taneously be  raised  in  a  thousand  pulpits.  *  The  spirit 
is  willing,*  but,  alas,  *  the  flesh  is  weak.'  Pray  for 
me — that  after  having  left  a  flame  burning  behind  me, 
I  may  be  speedily  restored  to  you.      Yours  affection- 

^*  "Alexander  Duff." 

Dr.  Duff  did  not  leave  London,  on  this  occasion, 
without  spending  a  forenoon  with  Lord  William  Ben- 
tinck.  After  breakfast  the  two  philanthropists  enjoyed 
the  fullest  and  freest  converse  regarding  the  conduct 
and  policy  of  the  Government  in  India,  past  and 
present.  Relieved  of  tne  responsibilities  of  Governor- 
General  Lord  William  was  able  to  criticise  most 
frankly  the  anomalous  constitution  of  the  East  India 
Company,  of  the  Board  of  Control  created  to  enable  the 
Crown  to  check  and  overrule  the  Court  of  Directors, 
and  of  the  administration  in  India  itself  in  all  its 
branches.  The  critic  commended  some  institutions 
and  persons,  but  exposed  the  faults  and  weaknesses  of 
many  more.  Of  that  priceless  experience,  as  of  the 
still  riper  knowledge  which  Dalhousie  and  Lord  Can- 
ning took  with  them  to  a  premature  grave,  there  is  no 
detailed  record.  Rulers  stumble  on  to-day  repeating 
the  mistakes  of  their  greater  predecessors  and  dream- 
ing that  their  statesmanship  is  new  because  they  are 
blind  to  the  past. 

Whilst  the  conversation  was  still  fresh  in  his  mind, 


JEt.  30.      LORD   W.   BENTINCE   ON   GOVERNING   INDIA.  337 

Dr.  Duff  wrote  down  a  very  full  and  minute  state- 
ment of  the  whole,  which,  as  a  curiosity,  he  sent  to 
the  Foreign  Missions  Committee.*  One  thing,  how- 
ever, was  never  effaced  from  his  memory :  Lord  W. 
Bentinck  with  great  emphasis  said  that  some  believed 
the  Government  in  India  was  an  absolute  irresponsible 
despotism.  Others  were  equally  strong  in  the  belief 
that  the  Court  of  Directors  was  the  originating  and 
directing  power.  Others  again  were  as  strongly  con- 
vinced that  the  real  power  lay  with  the  President  of 
the  Board  of  Control,  with  the  British  Parliament  at 
his  back.  But,  he  added,  one  thing  that  struck  him, 
and  of  the  truth  of  which  he  had  the  amplest  ex- 
perience, was  this,  that  in  the  office  of  the  President 
of  the  Board  of  Control  the  chief  secretary,  through 
whose  hands  all  official  documents  were  sent  out  and 
sent  home,  for  a  long  period — between  forty  and  fifty 
years — exercised  a  power  to  which  no  President  of 
the  Board  of  Control,  no  Director,  no  Governor- 
General  or  any  other  respousiblo  official  could  pretend. 
Lord  William  Bentiuc]  soon  after  addressed  this 
letter  to  Dr.  Duff: — 

"  Frankfort,  August  27th,  1835. 

"  Dear  Sir, — I  am  confident  you  will  excuse  my 
seeming  uncourteous  return  for  your  very  kind  letter, 
when  I  assure  you  that  the  weakness  that  I  brought 
with  me  from  India,  and  greatly  increased  by  all  the 
excitement,  fatigue  and  bustle  consequent  upon  my 
return,  completely  incapacitated  me  for  all  business 
and  exertion,  and  it  is  only  here  and  at  Bruxelles  that 
a  day  of  leisure  and  quiet  has  given  me  an  opportunity 
of   offering  this  explanation   to    many  friends  whose 


*  This  letter  is  not  among  those  most  kindly  copied  for  us  from 
the  records  of  the  Established  Church  of  Scotland. 


338  LIFE   OF   DK.    DUFF.  1836. 

letters  I  have  been  equally  compelled  to  neglect.  Lady 
William  begs  that  I  will  express  also  her  acknowledg- 
ments for  your  obliging  inquiries.  She  is,  I  am  sorry 
to  say,  a  greater  invalid  than  myself.  We  have  been 
both  advised  to  take  the  mineral  waters  of  Germany — 
she,  those  of  Schwalbach  in  Nassau,  and  I,  those  of 
Carlsbad  in  Bohemia.  My  health  has  much  improved 
since  I  left  London. 

"I  am  much  gra'^ied  to  hear  of  your  successful 
operations  in  Scotland.  It  must  bo  the  result  of  great 
personal  exertion  alone,  for  though  I  have  had  ample 
reason  to  know  the  indifference  and  apathy  that 
generally  prevail  respecting  all  matters  connected  with 
India,  yet  even  with  all  this  experience  I  was  not  pre- 
pared for  the  feeling  of  dislike  almost  with  which  any 
mention  of  India  is  received.  But  this  conviction  of 
a  sad  truth,  this  disgraceful  proof  of  British  selfishness 
ought  only  to  have  the  effect  of  exciting  those  deeply 
interested  in  the  moral  and  religious  welfare  of  the 
people  of  India  to  renewed  efforts  in  their  behalf. 

"  I  have  always  considered  the  Hindoo  College  as 
one  of  the  greatest  engines  of  useful  purpose  that  had 
been  erected  since  our  establishment  in  India;  but  that 
institution,  in  point  of  usefulness,  can  bear  no  com- 
parison with  yours,  in  which  improved  education  of 
every  kind  is  combined  with  religious  instruction.  I 
will  not  prolong  this  letter  further  than  to  say  that  I 
cannot  be  more  gratified  with  any  man's  good  opinion 
than  by  yours,  and  wishing  you  health  and  happi- 
ness, I  remain,  dear  sir,  your  friend  and  well-wisher, 

"  W.  Bentinck." 

This,  the  greatest  of  the  Bentincks,  who  thus  ex- 
presses something  like  shame  at  a  degree  of  English 
apathy  to  India  still  prevailing  in  spite  of  warnings 
like  the  first  Afghan  war  and  the  Mutiny  for  which 


JEt.  30.  MACAULAY   ON   LORD   W.    BENTINCK.  339 

that  iniquity  was  the  preparation,  died  four  years 
after,  having  represented  Ghisgow  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  Born  in  1774,  he  was  sixty-five  years  of 
age  when  his  ripe  experience  was  lost  to  a  country  and 
a  ministry  which  preferred  to  the  wise  Metcalfe  a 
place-hunter  like  Lord  Auckland.  But  Heaven  takes 
vengeance  on  a  land  for  preferring  the  political  par- 
tisans of  the  hour  to  its  truly  good  and  great  states- 
men. The  equally  noble  Lady  AVilliam,  renowned  in 
the  East  for  her  Christian  charities,  was  the  second 
daughter  of  the  first  Earl  of  Gosford,  and  survived  her 
husband  till  May,  1843.  This  great  Governor  General's 
epitaph  was  written  by  Macaulay,  in  the  inscription 
which  covers  the  pedestal  of  the  statue  erected  oppo- 
site the  town-hall  of  Calcutta  by  grateful  natives  and 
Europeans  alike  : — "  To  William  Cavendish  Bentinck, 
who  during  seven  years  ruled  India  with  eminent 
prudence,  integrity  and  benevolence ;  who,  placed  at 
the  head  of  a  great  empire,  never  laid  aside  the  sim- 
plicity and  moderation  of  a  private  citizen ;  who  in- 
fused into  Oriental  despotism  the  spirit  of  British 
freedom;  who  never  forgot  that  the  end  of  government 
is  the  welfare  of  the  governed;  who  abolished  cruel 
rites,  who  eff'aced  humiliating  distinctions,  who  allowed 
liberty  to  the  expression  of  public  opinion,  whose  con- 
stant study  it  was  to  elevate  the  moral  and  intellectual 
character  of  the  Government  committed  to  his  charge, 
this  Monument  was  erected  by  men  who,  differing 
from  each  other  in  race,  in  manners,  in  language  and 
in  religion,  cherish  with  equal  veneration  and  grati- 
tude the  memory  of  his  wise,  upright  and  paternal 
administration," 


CHAPTER    Xn. 

1837-1839. 
FISHERS    OF    MEN. 

Effect  of  First  Assembly  Speech  in  Drawing  Men. — Rev.  Jolin  Mac- 
donald  gives  Himself. — M'Cheyno  almost  Drawn. — Glasgow 
supplies  James  Halley. — The  Letters  of  Principal  Macfarlan  and 
Dr.  Duff. — Dr.  Coldstream  and  Medical  Mi.ssions. — John  Ander- 
son gives  himself  to  ^ladras. — Followed  by  Johnston  and  Bi aid- 
wood. — Drs.  Murray  Mitchell  and  T.  Smith. — Stephen  Hislop. — 
Duff's  Great  Speech  in  Exeter  Hall. —  Spiritual  Destitution  of 
India. — Indignant  Satire  on  the  Church's  Apathy. — The  Calculus 
of  Eternity,  and  the  Arithmetic  of  Time. — Missionary  sacrifice  in 
the  Light  of  Christ  Himself. — General  Assembly  of  1837. — Duff's 
Vindication  of  the  Mission. — The  two  bigotries,  of  Infidelity  and 
an  unwise  Pietism. — Native  Apostles. — Duff  appeals  to  Posterity. 
— Mistake  of  the  Indian  Presbyteries  in  the  Training  of  Native 
Missionaries. — Dr.  Macwhirter's  Command. — Prize  Essays  on 
Foreign  Missions. — Dr.  Chalmers  and  the  position  of  the  Kirk  in 
1839.— Letter  to  Dr.  Ewart.— Ordination  of  Dr.  T.  Smith.— 
Epistle  to  all  Young  Theologians. — Speech  on  Female  Education. 
— Lectures  and  Book  on  India  and  India  Missions. — Farewell  to 
the  General  Assembly  of  1839. — The  Press. — Personal  References. 
— Gifts  for  the  College  Building,  Library  and  Scholarships. — 
Duff  pleads  with  Thomas  Guthrie  to  go  to  India. — Dr.  Chal- 
mers endorses  Duff's  System,  and  acknowledges  his  Christian 
Economics. — The  Farewell  to  Moulin  and  to  the  Children. 

In  the  two  and  a  half  years  after  his  return  home 
at  the  beginning  of  1835,  convalescent  from  the  dy- 
sentery of  Bengal  but  subject  to  the  recurrence  of 
its  jungle  fever,  Dr.  Duff  had  nearly  completed  his 
work  of  organization.  Only  the  fervour  of  his  zeal, 
and  the  power  of  recovery  from  exhaustion  due  to 
a  splendid  physique  which  marked  his  whole  life,  had 
enabled  him  to  visit  and  address  seventy-one  presby- 
teries and  synods  and  hundreds  of  congregations  all 
over  Scotland.     This  he  had  done  during  the  rigours 


i?Lt.  31.  DRAWING   MEN   TO   INDIA.  34 1 

of  winter  and  the  heats  of  summer,  when  as  yet  the 
canal  boat,  the  stage-coach,  and  the  post-carriage  wore 
the  most  rapid  moans  of  conveyance.  Twice  ho  had 
visited  London  and  some  of  the  principal  cities  in 
England  on  the  same  mission.  But  that  mission  was 
not  merely  or  ultimatoly  the  establishment  of  associa- 
tions to  collect  money,  nor  even  the  diffusion  through 
the  Churclics  of  a  missionary  spirit.  Those  were  but 
means  to  tlie  great  end  of  discovering  and  sending 
out  men  of  the  highest  faith  and  scholarship  to  carry 
on  the  work  he  had  begun  in  Bengal,  to  extend  it  to 
Madras,  and  to  strengthen  Bombay.  For,  with  his 
delighted  concurrence,  the  General  Assembly  of  1835 
had  received  under  its  superintendence  the  Scottish 
]\-Tissionary  Society's  stations  in  Bombay  and  Poena, 
then  under  the  care  of  Dr.  Wilson,  Mr.  Nesbit  and 
Mr.  J.  Mitchell.  The  Kirk's  Bengal  Mission,  with  its 
one  missionary  of  1829-31,  must,  according  to  Dr. 
Duff,  grow  into  the  India  Mission,  to  christianize  the 
progress  which  was  radiating  out  from  all  the  groat 
English  centres  in  the  East. 

Hence  the  most  real  and  fruitful  result  of  his  first 
Assembly  speech  and  of  those  which  followed  it,  in 
Scotland  and  in  England,  was  in  drawing  men  to  give 
themselves  to  India.  The  whole  religious  biography 
of  the  former  country  relating  to  that  period  is 
coloured  by  his  influence  or  bears  traces  of  his  per- 
suasive power.  We  have  already  told  how  his  early 
visit  to  the  London  presbytery  had  converted  the  Rev. 
John  Macdonald  from  an  opponent  of  his  system  into 
such  an  advocate  of  it  that  the  minister  of  Chadwoll 
Street,  Pentonville,  threw  up  his  homo  charge  and  took 
his  place  beside  ]\Iackay  and  Ewart  in  Calcutta.  Son 
of  that  Dr.  Macdonald  of  Ferintosh,  who  was  worthy 
of  the  name  he  bore,  of  "apostle  of  the  Highlands," 
John  Macdonald  published  a  "  Statement  of  Reasons 


342  LIFE   OF   DIl.    DUFF.  1837. 

for  Accepting  a  Call  to  go  to  India  as  a  Missionary,'* 
wliicli,  as  followed  by  his  self-sacrificing  life  theroiifter, 
was  the  most  powerful  testimony  to  the  cause  Dr. 
Duff  had  yet  called  forth.  No  one  can  give  moro 
than  himself;  no  gift  to  any  cau::?o  can  bo  moro 
precious  than  that  of  the  whole  sphitualised  nature 
of  a  man  who  is  in  earnest  to  the  death,  ».«»  John 
Macdonald  proved  to  be.  In  Macdonald  Dr.  Duff 
early  saw,  and  found  for  the  ten  years  of  the  new 
missionary's  Indian  experience,  an  intense  spiritual 
force  to  give  increased  evangelistic  efficiency  to 
the  Calcutta  college.  "  Your  special  and  peculiar 
vocation,"  he  wrote  to  his  new  colleague  before 
sending  him  forth,  '*  would  bo  to  impart,  through  the 
blessing  of  God's  Spirit,  a  spiritual  impression  to  tho 
minds  of  scores  that  have  already  become  dispossessed 
of  Hindooism,  as  well  as  to  preach  whenever  an  open- 
ing presented  itself,  to  adult  idolaters.  Our  plan  is 
now  so  extended  as  to  admit  of  a  division  of  labour." 
We  have  seen  how  young  M'Cheyne  and  Somer- 
ville  were  moved  by  the  interview  which  they  sought 
with  the  returned  missionary.  Duff  never  lost  his 
hold  on  M'Cheyne,  who  soon  after  formed  one  of  the 
Church's  mission  of  inquiry  into  the  condition  of  the 
Jews  in  Palestine  and  Eastern  Europe.  In  April, 
1836,  the  saintly  young  preacher  wrote  in  his  jour- 
nal : — "  Went  to  Stirling  to  hear  Dr.  Duff  once  more 
upon  his  system.  With  greater  warmth  and  energy 
than  ever.  He  kindles  as  he  goes.  Felt  almost  con- 
strained to  go  the  whole  length  of  his  system  with 
him.  If  it  were  only  to  raise  up  an  audience  it  would 
be  defensible,  but  when  it  is  to  raise  up  teachers  it  ia 
more  than  defensible.  I  am  now  made  willing,  if  God 
shall  open  the  way,  to  go  to  India.  '  Here  am  I ;  send 
me  ! '  "  His  biographer.  Dr.  A.  Bonar,  remarks  that 
"  the  missionary  feeling  in  M'Cheyne's  soul  continued 


^t.  31.  "  THE    MAN    WHO  DliAT  TAIT."  343 

all  his  life.  Must  tlioro  not  be  somewhat  of  this 
missionary  tendency  in  all  true  ministers  ?  "  Yet  tho 
only  one  of  the  M'Cheyne  band  who  practically 
answered  this  question,  besides  William  Burns,  of 
Cliina,  was  John  Milne,  of  Perth,  who  was  afterwards 
for  a  few  years  Free  Church  minister  in  Calcutta. 
Macdonald's  resignation  of  a  home  charge  for  a  mis- 
sionary's apostolate  caused  so  much  excitement  as  to 
irritate  him  into  putting  the  question  to  the  degenerate 
Church — "  Why  is  not  such  an  event  commonplace?" 
Ediuhurgh  and  St.  Andrews  had  sent  their  best 
student i  to  the  field;  it  was  now  the  turn  of  Glasgow, 
which  had  been  doing  much  for  Kaffraria,  to  inquire. 
The  ripest  scholar  in  its  university  proved  to  bo  the 
most  devoted  student  of  theology.  James  Halley,  A.B., 
was  the  favourite  disciple  of  Sir  Daniel  K.  Sandford, 
who,  having  imbued  him  with  the  very  spirit  of  a 
reverent  Hellenism,  introduced  him  to  the  Edinburgh 
Professor  of  Greek  as  '*  the  man  who  beat  Tait,"  tho 
present  Archbishop  of  Canterbujy.  Ho  promised  to 
be  the  ornament  of  his  university  and  of  the  Church, 
when  death  prematurely  closed  his  bright  career. 
What  he  was,  the  Rev.  William  Arnot's  little  memoir 
tells  us.  He  hurried  through  from  Glasgow,  with 
James  Hamilton,  afterwards  of  Regent  Square,  to 
hear  Duff's  speech  in  the  Assembly  of  1835,  and  ar- 
rived only  in  time  to  witness  its  effect.  He  describes 
it  as  "a  noble  burst  of  enthusiastic  appeal  which 
made  grey-headed  pastors  weep  like  children,  and 
dissolved  half  the  Assembly  in  tears."  The  im- 
mediate effect  on  him  was  seen  in  the  College  Mis- 
sionary Society,  of  which  he  was  president.  Address- 
ing Dr.  Macfarlan,  the  principal  of  the  University, 
and  Dr.  Duff  afterwards,  Mr.  Halley  sought  their 
encouragement  of  the  students'  missionary  aims.  The 
former  replied,  declining  to  contribute  even  the  usual 


344  I-IFE  OP  DB.   DUFF.  1837. 

guinea,  warning  thorn  that  "  such  exertions  on  tho 
part  of  the  students  are  premature  and  injudicious,'* 
and  thus  concluding :  "  I  trust  you  will  receive  this 
explanation  as  a  proof  at  once  of  my  deep  interest 
in  the  real  welfare  and  improvement  of  the  students 
attending  this  university,  and  of  the  personal  regard 
for  yourself."  We  are  not  parodying  the  words,  nor 
misrepresenting  the  acts  of  the  head  of  the  University 
of  Glasgow  in  the  year  1835.  Early  in  1837  Mr. 
Halley  received  from  Dr.  Duff  this  reply  : — 


it 


PiTLOCHRiR,  7th  March,  1837. 

**  I  had  once  expected  to  have  been  able  to  meet 
your  association  in  person,  in  which  case  much  could 
bo  advanced  that  cannot  well  be  committed  to  writing. 
But  it  was  a  constitution  shattered  beyond  hope  of 
recovery  in  a  tropical  clime  that  drove  me  from  tho 
field  of  labour  ;  and  ever  since  my  arrival  in  my  native 
land  I  have  been  buffeting  with  the  dregs  of  tropical 
disease.  In  this  way,  rocked  by  discipline  and  cradled 
by  disappointment,  I  have  been  unable  to  overtake  a 
tithe  of  what  I  had  originally  proposed  to  myself. 
But  as  it  is  the  ordination  of  Heaven,  I  trust  I  have 
learned  to  submit  in  patient  resignation,  ever  ready  to 
adopt  the  language  of  my  Saviour  and  Redeemer — 
'  Even  so,  Father,  for  so  it  seemed  good  in  Thy  sight.' 

"  In  the  midst  of  the  thunder  of  clashing  interests 
and  the  lightning  of  angry  controversy  in  this  dis- 
tracted land,  how  sweet,  how  refreshing  to  the  soul 
to  enter  the  quiet  haven  of  devotion,  and  there  hold 
communion  with  the  great  I  Am,  and  the  Lamb  slain 
from  the  foundation  of  the  world,  and  the  Holy  Spirit 
that  enkindles  with  the  fervour  of  divine  love.  It  is 
this  feature  in  the  organization  of  your  society — 
effective  as  it  is  in  other  respects  also — that  inspires 
me  with  the   purest  joy.     An   alternate   meeting  is 


^t.  31.      GLASGOW  UNIVERSITY  MISSIONARY  SOCIETY.  345 

devoted,  you  say,  to  Christian  fellowship,  prayer  and 
the  reading  of  missionary  intelligence.  God  bo 
praised  who  has  put  it  into  your  hearts  to  unite  in 
such  hallowing  exercises.  If  such  meetings  were 
more  general  they  would  be  the  rallying  centres  of 
hope  to  a  divided  Church  and  a  bleednig  world. 

"  You  advert  to  the  chillini?  influence  of  academic 
pursuits  on  the  growth  of  piety  in  the  soul.  Most 
keenly  have  I  felt  it  myself.  How  is  it  to  bo  obvi- 
ated ?  By  constantly  falling  back  on  the  touching 
and  searching  simplicity  of  God's  own  word,  and 
constantly  besieging  a  throne  of  grace  with  the 
honest  effusions  of  a  heart  panting  and  thirsting  after 
the  love  of  God.  Without  the  unceasing  recurrence 
of  such  soul-reviving  exercises  I  have  learned,  from 
sad  experience  too,  that  even  religious  pursuits — 
whether  these  consist  in  replenishing  the  intellect 
with  divine  knowledge  or  in  the  multiplied  duties  of 
the  ministerial  office — that  even  such  pursuits  may 
drain  up  the  fountain-head  of  spiritual  vitality  and 
cause  the  plant  of  renown  in  the  soul,  for  a  season 
at  least,  to  droop  and  wither  and  decay. 

"  You  complain  of  indifference  to  religion  in  general 
and  missions  in  particular.  Oh,  it  is  this  indifference 
which  I  fear  may  eventually  prove  the  ruin  of  our 
land,  if  God  in  mercy  do  not  send  some  trumpet-peal 
to  rouse  us  from  our  lethargy  1  The  work  of  missions 
is  so  peculiarly  a  Christian  work  that  neither  its 
principles  nor  its  objects  can  be  rendered  perfectly 
intelligible  to  any  but  God's  own  children.  Indiffer- 
ence to  religion  in  general  must,  therefore,  produce 
indifference  to  the  missionary  cause.  These  are  re- 
lated as  an  antecedent  and  consequent,  as  cause  and 
effect.  If  the  souls  of  men  have  not  yet  been 
awakened  to  a  sense  of  sin  and  danger — if  they  have 
not  yet  been  sanctified,  they  cannot  be  susceptible  of 


t 


46  LIFE    OF   DE.    DUFF.  1 837. 


any  spiritual  impression  f':'om  any  quarter  whatever. 
To  arrest  tbc  attention  of  such  persons  in  a 
vital  manner,  and  secure  their  sympathies  and  their 
exertions  in  behalf  of  the  perishing  heathen,  we  must 
first  arouse  them  to  a  lively  personal  concern  for  the 
salvation  of  their  own  souls." 

Another  who  was  then  a  youth  of  promise,  and  be- 
came the  founder  of  the  Edinburgh  Medical  Missionary 
Society,  if  not  of  Medical  Missions,  was  profoundly 
impressed.  We  find  Dr.  Coldstream,  who  had  just 
settled  in  Leith  as  a  physician,  thus  writing  in  1837 : 
"  The  missionary  sermon  and  lesson  of  yesterday,  by 
Dr.  Duff,  were  most  impressive.  I  have  no  words  to 
express  their  thrilling  effect.  .  .  I  think  I  never 
felt  so  strongly  the  delightful  influence  of  the  bond 
of  Christian  love.  The  very  spirit  of  love  seemed  to 
move  with  electric  fire  through  the  great  assembly, 
knitting  heart  to  heart,  and  kindling  sparks  of  holy 
zeal.  It  is  a  day  much  to  be  remtmbered."  When, 
thirteen  years  afterwards.  Dr.  Dufi"  publicly  referred 
to  a  series  of  lectures  on  Medical  Missions  published 
by  that  most  successful  society,  and  asked  "  when  will 
some  of  these  lecturers  set  the  example  of  devoting 
themselves  to  the  missionary  service  and  come  out  to 
India?"  as  has  since  been  done.  Dr.  Coldstream  re- 
plied, "  I  feel  as  if  you  had  put  the  question  to  mo 
individually." 

The  report  of  the  speech  of  1835  found  its  way  to 
the  retreat,  near  Dumfries,  of  a  young  licentiate  of  thr 
Kirk  whom  sickness  had  laid  aside.  John  Anderson 
had  passed  through  the  eight  years'  studies  of  the 
University  of  Edinburgh  the  first  man  of  his  set.  Like 
John  Wilson  at  an  earlier  time,  he  had  come  under  the 
influence  of  Dr.  Gordon,  who  to  his  labours  in  pulpit 
and  parish  added  the  duties  of  secretary  of  the  Foreign 
Missions  Committee.      Having  refused  the   office   of 


^t.  31.  JOHN  ANDERSON  OF   MADRAS.  347 

assistant  to  a  minister,  Jolm  Anderson  wiis  altogctlier 
despairing  of  health,  and  was  ah-eady  thirty-two,  when 
that  happened  Avhieh  ho  himself  shall  describe — "  We 
well  remember  the  time  when,  on  his  return  from  India, 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Duff,  emaciated  by  disease  and  worn  out 
with  the  strenuous  exertions  of  the  first  five  years  of 
his  missionary  life,  delivered  his  first  speech  on  India 
Missions.  ,  .  Its  statements  flew  like  liofhtninj? 
through  the  length  and  breadth  of  Scotland,  vibrated 
through  and  warmed  many  hearts  hitherto  cold  to 
missions,  and  tended  to  produce  unity  among  brethren 
standing  aloof  from  each  other.  Never  will  we  forgot 
the  day  when  a  few  of  its  living  fragments  caught  our 
eye  in  a  newspaper  in  our  quiet  retreat  on  the  banks 
of  the  xTith,  near  Dumfries,  when  suffering  from  great 
bodily  weakness;  It  kindled  a  spirit  within  us  that 
raised  us  up  from  our  bed,  and  pointed  as  if  with  the 
finger  to  India  as  the  fold  of  our  future  labours." 
Already  had  Anderson,  as  a  tutor,  been  able  to  train 
men  like  John  Cowan,  Esq.,  of  Beeslack.  But  his 
indomitable  will  and  untiring  energy  wore  now  called 
to  found  and  build  up  in  Madras  the  General  Assem- 
bly's Institution,  which  has  since  expanded  into  the 
great  catholic  Christian  College  of  Southern  India — • 
tlie  first  to  realize  Dr.  Duff''s  ideal  of  a  united  colloo'o 
representing  all  the  evangelical  churches.  Ordained  in 
St.  George's,  Edinburgh,  by  Dr.  Gordon,  Mr.  Ander- 
son visited  the  alcutta  Mission  before  setting  up  his 
own  on  its  model,  and  was  soon  after  joined  by  such 
colleagues,  also  the  fruit  of  Duit's  appeals,  as  Messrs. 
Johnston  and  Braid  wood  from  the  same  university. 
Aberdeen  at  the  same  time  joined  her  sister  colleges  in 
the  high  enterprise,  by  sending  Dr.  Murray  Mitchell  to 
Bombay.  The  harvest,  for  that  season,  was  finished 
by  another  missionary  from  Edinburgh,  the  Rev. 
Thomas  Smith,  to  whose  ordination  we  shall  again 


348  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1837. 

refer.  The  opening  of  tlie  Central  India  Mission  in 
Nagpore,  a  few  y^ears  after,  by  Stephen  Hislop,  com- 
pleted the  Indian  organization  of  the  missions  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland,  established  and  free.  All,  directly 
or  indirectly,  are  to  be  traced  to  the  living  seed  sown 
amid  so  much  weakness  but  yet  with  such  power  in 
1835-36. 

After  a  rest  at  Edradour,  all  too  short.  Dr.  Duff 
went  up  to  liondon  at  the  beginning  of  May,  1837,  to 
take  part  in  the  anniversary  of  the  Church  of  Scot- 
land's Foreign  Missions,  held  by  the  London  Pres- 
bytery in  Exeter  Hall.  After  much  searching  we  have 
been  able  to  discover  in  an  old  volume  of  pamphlets 
of  the  period  a  copy  of  what  his  English  critics  have 
always  pronounced  by  far  the  most  eloquent  of  Dr. 
Duff's  speeches.  Though  weak,  he  was  no  longer  the 
fever-wasted  man  who  had  excited  the  alarm  of  the 
Assembly  of  1835.  By  unrivalled  experience  in  both 
England  and  Scotland  he  had  learned  the  defects  of 
the  home  Churches  and  of  the  best  stay-at-home  Chris- 
tians in  relation  to  the  missionary  command  of  Christ. 
And  so,  as  he  mused  on  the  contrast  between  the  pro- 
fession and  the  reality,  as  he  listened  to  the  rhetorical 
periods  of  bishops  and  clergymen,  of  ministers  and 
professors  who  talked  but  did  nothing  more,  the  fire 
of  indignation  burned  forth  into  glowing  sarcasm. 
Nothing  short  of  a  reprint  of  the  twenty-five  pages  of 
that  rare  address  could  do  justice  to  this  vein  uf  the 
impassioned  oratcr.  Severed  from  the  context,  without 
the  flashing  eye,  the  quivering  voice,  the  rapid  gesticu- 
lation, the  overwhelming  climax,  the  few  passages  we 
may  now  reproduce  seem  cold  and  formal  indeed. 
But  we  must  premise  the  orator's  own  explanation  of 
the  satire — "  These  expressions  are  in  alhision  to 
certain  tropes  and  figures  that  have  actually  flourished 
amid  the  exuberant  rhetoric  of  Exeter  Hall." 


iEt.  31.  THE   RHETORIC   OP  EXETER  HALL.  349 

Beginning,  in  tlie  highest  style  of  his  art,  as  Demos- 
thenes and  Cicero  and  Paul  before  Agrippa  had  done, 
this  modern  prophet,  sent  from  the  millions  of  Hin- 
dooism  to  the  very  centre  of  Christian  profession, 
congratulated  London,  and  especially  its  Scottish  resi- 
dents, on  the  reception  of  the  appeal  lately  sounded  in 
their  ears  "  in  behalf  of  our  suffering  countrymen  in 
the  Highlands  and  islands  of  Scotland.  Nobly  and 
righteously,  and  in  a  way  worthy  of  the  wealthiest 
metropolis  in  the  world,  has  the  appeal  been  responded 
to.  But  why  is  it  that  we  should  bo  affected  even 
unto  horror  at  the  melancholy  recital  of  mere  temporal 
destitution,  while  we  are  apt  to  remain  so  cold,  callous 
and  indifferent  to  the  call  of  spiritual  necessities  that 
is  rung  in  our  ears,  loud  as  the  cry  of  perishing  multi- 
tudes which  no  man  can  number?"  Then  after  skil- 
fully picturing  the  horrors  of  famine  and  pestilence 
among  our  own  countrymen  and  within  the  narrow 
limits  of  our  island,  and  asking  if  imagination  could 
concei/e  aught  more  harrowing,  he  replied  :  "  No  !  not 
to  the  natural  feeling,  even  although  such  a  death  is 
by  the  hands  of  a  mysterious  Providence.  To  the 
higher  order  of  spiritual  sensibility,  however,  some- 
thing may  be  presented  more  harrowing  still.  I 
know  a  land  where  earth,  sea  and  air  conspire  in 
favour  of  its  inhabitants — a  land  so  gorgeously  clad 
that  it  has  been  emphatically  styled  *  the  climes  of  the 
sun.'  And  truty  they  are  *  the  climes  of  the  sun  ; '  for 
there  he  seems  to  smile  with  exuberant  bounty,  and 
causes  al)  nature  to  luxuriate  in  her  rich  magnificence. 
There  the  glowing  imagery  of  the  prophet  seems 
almost  literally  to  be  realized.  The  trees  of  the  forest 
seem  to  clap  their  hands,  and  the  valleys  seem  to 
rejoice  on  every  side.  All  bespeak  the  glories  of  a 
presiding  Deity  and  recall  to  remembrance  the  bowers 
of  Paradise.     But  oh  1  in  this  highly  favoured  land — 


350  LIFE   OP    DE.    DUFF.  1 83  7. 

need  I  say  I  refer  to  India  ? — wliicli  for  beauty  might 
be  the  garden  of  the  whole  earth,  and  for  plenteousness 
the  granary  of  the  nations, — in  this  highly  favoured 
land  children  are  doomed  to  see  their  parents  and 
parents  their  children  perish — perish,  not  because 
there  is  no  meat  in  the  field,  no  flocks  in  the  fold,  no 
cattle  in  the  stall,  but  because  they  are  goaded  on  by 
the  stimulants  of  a  diabolical  superstition  to  perish 
miserably  by  each  other's  hands." 

Then  followed  word-pictures  of  that  which  may 
still  be  seen  along  the  Hooghly — "  sons  and  daughters 
piously  consigning  a  sickly  parent,  for  the  benefit  of 
his  soul,  to  the  depths  of  a  watery  grave;"  of  "the 
putrid  corpse  of  the  father  and  the  living  body  of  the 
mother"  burning  together,  in  every  feudatory  state 
at  that  time,  and  only  in  1828  prohibited  in  the  East 
India  Company's  territory ;  of  the  sacrifice  of  children 
by  their  mothers  to  the  waters  of  Gunga  and  the  jaws 
of  the  alligator ;  and  of  the  systematic  murder  of 
female  infimts  by  the  Rajpoot  castes  from  Benares  to 
Baroda.  Rising  from  one  scene  of  pitiful  horror  to 
another,  every  one  of  which  an  audience  even  of  1837 
knew  to  be  living  fact  and  not  old  history  as  we  now 
happily  do,  thanks  to  Missions  and  Christian  appeals, 
the  rajDt  speaker  reached  the  highest  of  all  in  the 
spiritual  destitution  and  debasement  which  had  made 
such  crimes  inevitable;  and  in  the  means  which  he 
had  taken,  through  sacred  and  secular  truth  harmo- 
niously united,  to  give  India  a  new  future.  A  far- 
seeing  demand  for  pure  English  and  vernacular  liter- 
ature, beginning  with  "  the  Bible,  the  whole  Bible,  the 
unmutilatcd  Bible,  and  nothing  but  the  Bible,"  for 
those  whom .  both  state  and  church  were  educating, 
brought  Dr.  Duff  to  the  practical  object  of  his  address 
— the  duty  of  every  Christian  man,  woman  and  child 
in  Great  Britain. 


^t.  31.      INDIGNANT  SATIRE  ON  THE  CHURCIl's  APATHY.       35  I 


« 


Look  at  men*s  acts  and  not  at  tlicir  words,  for  I  am  wearied 
and  disgusted  with  very  loathing  at  '  great  swelling  woi'da  * 
that  boil  and  bubble  into  foam  and  froth  on  the  bosom  of  an 
impetuous  torrent  of  oratory  and  then  burst  into  airy  nothing- 
ness. Look  at  men's  acts,  and  tell  mo  what  language  do  they 
speak  ?  Is  it  in  very  deed  a  thiug  so  mighty  for  ono  of  your 
nobles  or  merchant  princes  to  rise  up  on  this  platform  and  pro- 
claim his  intense  anxiety  that  contributions  should  be  liberal, 
and  then  stimulate  those  around  him  by  the  noble,  or  rather 
ignoble,  example  of  embodying  his  irrepressible  anxiety  in  the 
magnificent  donation  of  £10,  £20,  or  £50  !  when,  at  the  very 
moment,  without  curtailing  any  of  the  real  necessaries  of  life, 
without  even  abridging  any  one  of  its  fictitious  comf  )rts  or 
luxuries,  he  might  readily  consecrate  his  hundreds  or  thou- 
sands to  be  restored  more  than  a  hundred-fold  on  the  great 
day  of  final  recompense  ?  And  call  you  this  an  act  of  such 
prodigious  munificence  that  it  must  elicit  the  shouts  and  the 
pa3ans  of  an  entranced  multitude  ?  Call  you  this  an  act  of  such 
thrilling  disinterestedness  that  it  must  pierce  into  hearts  other- 
wise hermetically  sealed  against  the  imploring  cries  of  suffering 
humanity  ?  Call  you  this  an  act  of  such  self-sacrificing  gene- 
rosity that  it  must  be  registered  for  a  memorial  in  the  book  of 
God's  remembr  ^e,  with  the  same  stamp  of  Divine  approbation 
as  that  bestowed  on  the  poor  widow  in  the  gospel,  who,  though 
she  gave  but  little,  gave  her  all  ? 

"And  is  it  in  very  deed  a  thing  so  mighty  for  a  Christian 
pastor,  whether  bishop,  priest  or  deacon,  or  any  member  of  a 
Church,  to  abandon  for  a  season  his  routine  of  duty,  and  once 
in  the  year  to  come  up,  either  to  regale,  or  be  regaled,  with  the 
incense  of  human  applause  in  this  great  metropolis,  the  em- 
porium of  the  world's  commerce,  the  seat  of  the  world's 
mightiest  empire,  and  the  general  rendezvous  of  men  and 
things  unparalleled  in  all  the  world  besides  ?  Is  it  a  thiug  so 
mighty  for  any  one  of  these  to  stand  up  on  this  platform,  and 
call  on  assembled  thousands  to  rise  to  their  true  elevation,  and 
acquit  themselves  like  men  in  the  cause  of  Him  who  rides  on 
the  whirlwind  and  directs  the  storm  ?  And,  dismissing  all 
ordinary  forms  and  figures  of  speech  as  tame  and  inadequate, 
is  it  an  act  so  heroic  to  stand  on  this  platform,  and  break  forth 
into  apostrophes,  that  ring  with  the  din  of  arms  and  the  shout 
of  battle  ?     Is  it  an  act  so  heroic,  at  the  safe  distance  of  ten 


352  LIFE    OF   DR.    DUFF.  183 7. 

thousand  miles,  courageously  to  summon  the  gates  of  Peking  to 
lift  up  their  heads,  and  its  barricades  and  ramparts  to  rend 
asunder  at  the  presence  of  the  heralds  of  salvation  ?  and, 
impersonifying  the  celestial  empire  herself,  boldly  invoke  her 
to  send  up  without  delay  her  hundreds  of  millions  to  the  house 
of  the  Lord,  exalted  above  the  hills,  and  place  her  imperial 
crown  on  the  head  of  Him  on  Whose  head  shall  be  all  the 
crowns  of  the  earth,  and  the  diadem  of  the  universe  ? 

"  Or,  is  it  an  act  of  spiritual  prowess  so  mighty,  for  one  who 
never  joined  in  the  conflict,  to  stand  up  on  this  platform,  and 
rehearse  the  battles  that  have  been  fought  in  the  missionary 
field,  the  victories  that  have  been  obtained,  and  the  trophies 
that  huve  been  won  ?  Is  it  an  achievement  of  never-dying 
fame  to  burst  into  rapture  at  the  unrivalled  honour  of  those 
brave  veterans  that  have  already  laid  down  their  lives  in  storm- 
ing the  citadels  of  heathenism  ?  Hark  !  here  are  a  few  blasts 
from  a  trumpet  that  has  often  pealed,  and  pealed  with  effect, 
at  our  great  anniversaries.  The  missionary's  life  ?  Ah  !  *  an 
archangel  would  come  down  from  the  throne,  if  he  might,  and 
feel  himself  honoured  to  give  up  the  felicities  of  heaven  for  a 
season  for  the  toils  of  a  missionary's  life.'  The  missionary's 
work  ?  Ah  !  ^  the  work  of  a  minister  at  home,  as  compared 
with  that  of  a  missionary,  is  but  the  lighting  of  a  parish  lamp, 
to  the  causing  the  sun  to  rise  upon  an  empire  that  is  yet  in 
darkness.'  The  missionary's  grave  ?  Ah  !  '  the  missionary's 
grave  is  far  more  honourable  than  the  minister's  pulpit.' 

'^ After  such  outpourings  of  fervent  zeal  and  burning  admir- 
ation of  valour,  would  ye  not  expect  that  the  limits  of  a  kingdom 
were  too  circumscribed  for  the  range  of  spirits  so  chivalrous  ? 
Would  ye  not  expect  that  intervening  oceans  and  continents 
could  oppose  no  barrier  to  their  resistless  career  ?  Would  yo 
not  expect  that,  as  chieftains  at  the  head  of  a  noble  army, 
numerous  as  the  phalanxes  that  ere  while  flew  from  tilt  and 
tournament  to  glitter  in  the  sunshine  of  the  Holy  Land,  they 
should  no  more  be  hoard  of  till  they  make  known  their 
presence,  by  the  terror  of  their  power,  in  shattering  to  atoms 
the  towering  walls  of  China,  and  hoisting  in  triumph  the 
banners  of  the  Cross  over  the  captured  mosques  of  Araby  and 
prostrate  pagodas  of  India  ?  Alas,  alas !  what  shall  we  say, 
when  the  thunder  of  heroism  that  reverberates  so  sublimely 
over  our  heads  from  year  to  year  in  Exeter  Hall,  is  foundj  in 


JEl  Zi»  ^  APPEAL.  353 

diangeloss  succession,  to  die  away  in  fainter  and  yet  fainter 
echoes  among  the  luxurious  mansions,  the  snug  dwellings,  and 
goodly  parsonages  of  Old  England  ! 

"Listen  to  the  high-sounding  words  of  the  mightiest  of  our 
anniversary  thundcrors  on  this  platform,  and  would  ye  not  vow 
that  they  were  heroes,  with  whom  the  post  of  honour  was  the 
post  of  danger  ?  Look  at  the  astounding  contrast  of  their 
practice,  and  will  not  your  checks  redden  with  the  crimson 
Hush  of  shame,  to  find  that  they  are  coAvards,  with  whom  the 
post  of  honour  is,  after  all,  the  post  of  safety  ?  Ye  venerated 
fathers  and  brethren  in  the  ministry,  whc  l  now  see  around 
me,  of  every  denomination — to  you  I  appeal.  I  appeal  in  the 
spirit  of  foithfulness,  and  yet  in  the  spii'it  of  love,  and  ask  : — 
Is  this  the  way  to  awake  the  long-slumbering  spirit  of  devoted- 
ness  throughout  the  land  ?  Is  this  the  kind  of  call  that  will 
arouse  the  dormant  energies  of  a  sluggish  Church  ?  Is  this 
the  kind  of  summons  that  will  cause  a  rush  of  champions  into 
the  field  of  danger  and  of  death  ?  Is  this  the  kind  of  example 
that  will  stimulate  a  thousand  GutzlafTs  to  brave  the  horrors 
of  a  barbarous  shore  ? — that  will  incite  thousands  of  Martyns, 
and  of  Careys,  and  of  Morrisons,  to  arm  themselves  on  the 
consecrated  spots  where  these  foremost  warriors  fell  ?  I  know 
not  what  the  sentiments  of  this  great  audience  may  be  on  a 
subject  so  momentous  ;  but  as  for  myself,  I  cannot,  at  whatever 
risk  of  offence  to  friends,  and  of  ribaldry  from  enemies, — I  can- 
not, without  treason  to  my  God  and  Saviour, — I  cannot  but 
give  vent  to  the  overpowering  emotions  of  my  own  heart,  when, 
in  the  face  of  England,  Scotland  and  Ireland  I  exclaim,  '  Oh 
that  my  head  were  waters,  that  mine  eyes  were  a  fountain  of 
tears,  that  I  could  weep  over  the  fatal,  the  disastrous  iucon- 
sistencies  of  many  of  the  most  renowned  of  the  leaders  of  our 
people ! ' 

"  What,  then,  is  to  be  done  ?  How  are  the  gigantic  evils 
complained  of  to  be  efficiently  remedied  ?  Never,  never,  till 
the  leading  members  of  our  Churches  be  shamed  out  of  their 
lavish  extravagance  in  conforming  to  the  fashion  of  a  world 
that  is  so  soon  to  pass  away,  and  out  of  their  close-fisted  penu- 
riousness  as  regards  all  claims  that  concern  the  eternal  destinies 
of  their  fellows.  Never,  never,  till  the  angels  of  our  Churches, 
whether  ordinary  pastors  or  superintending  bishops,  be  shamed 
out  of  their  sloth,  their  treachery  and  their  cowardice.     For, 

A  A 


354  I'if'E  0^  ^^'  DUFP.  1837. 

rest  assured,  that  people  would  got  we.iry  of  the  sound  of  tlio 
demand  '  Give,  give/  that  is  eternally  reiterated  in  their  oars, 
when  those  who  make  it  so  seldom  give,  or,  what  is  the  same 
thing,  give  in  such  scanty  driblets  that  it  seems  a  mockery  of 
their  own  expostulations, — and  of  the  sound  of  the  command 
*  Go,  go,'  when  those  who  make  it,  are  themselves  so  seldoui 
found  willing  to  go  ! 

"  How,  then,  is  the  remedy  to  be  effected  ?  Not,  believe  me, 
by  periodical  showers  of  words,  however  copious,  which  fall 
Mike  snow-flakes  in  the  river, — a  moment  white,  then  gono 
for  ever.'  No ;  but  by  thousands  of  deeds  that  shall  cause 
the  very  scoffer  to  wonder,  even  if  ho  should  wonder  and 
perish — deeds  that  shall  enkindle  into  a  blaze  the  smouldering 
embers  of  Christian  lovo — deeds  that  shall  revive  the  days  of 
primitive  devotedness,  when  men,  valiant  for  the  truth,  de- 
spised earthly  riches,  and  conquered  through  suQeriugs,  not 
counting  their  lives  dear  unto  the  death." 

"  Archangels,"  ho  said,  "  cannot  leave  their  thrones ; 
but  where  are  the  learned  and  the  eloquent,  tho 
statesmen  and  the  nobles, — where  is  one  of  our  loud- 
talking  professors  ready  to  do  more  than  shrivel 
their  little  services  into  the  wretched  inanity  of  an 
occasional  sermon,  or  a  speech,  easily  pronounced  and 
calling  for  no  sacrifice  ?  .  .  AVhat !  expect  one  and 
all  of  these  to  descend  from  their  eminences  of  honour 
and  go  forth  themselves  content  with  the  humble 
fare  and  arrayed  in  the  humble  attire  of  self-denying 
missionaries  ?  Is  not  this  the  very  climax  of  religious 
raving  ?  Gracious  God  !  and  is  it  really  so  ?  .  , 
Are  we  in  sober  seriousness  determined  to  contract 
the  calculus  of  eternity  within  the  narrow  dimensions 
of  the  arithmetic  of  time  ?  Do  I  now  stand  in  an 
assembly  of  professing  Christians  ?  "  Then  the  sacred 
orator,  turning  from  sarcasm  and  irony,  from  reproach 
and  prophetic  ridicule,  thus  closed  with  his  entranced 
audience  in  the  presence  of  Him  who  gave  Himself: — 


ft 


With  deep  solemnity  of  feeling   let  me  ask : — '  Who  is 


iEt.  31.  MISSIONS    IN   THE   LIGHT   OF   CHRIST.  355 

this    that   comoth   from    Edom,   with    dyed    garments   from 
Bozrah  ? '     It  is   the   Man   who   is    Jehovah's  fellow.     It  is 
Immanuel,  God  with  us.     But  who  can  portray  the  undcrived, 
the  incomparable  excellencies  of  llim,  in  whom   dwelt  all   the 
fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily  ?     In  this  contemplation  wo  are 
at  once  lost  in  an  immeasurable  ocean  o.  overpowering  glory. 
Imagination  is  bewildered;  language  fails.     Go  take  a  survey 
of  the  earth  wo  dwell  upon.     Collect  every  object  and  every 
quality  that  has  been  pronounced  fair,  sweet,  or  lovely.     Com- 
bine these  into  one  resplendent  orb   of  beauty.     Then  leave 
the  bounds  of  earth.     Wing  your  flight  through  the  fields  of 
immensity.     In  your  progress  collect  what  is  fair  and  lovely 
in  every  world,   what  is  bright  and  dazzling   in   every  sun. 
Combine  these  into  other  oibs  of  surpassing  brightness,  and 
thus  continue  to  swell  the  number  of  magnificent  aggregates, 
till  the  whole  immense  extent  of  creation  is  exhausted.     And 
after  having  united  these   myriads   of    bright  orbs  into  ono 
glorious   constellation,   combining   in  itself    the  concentrated 
beauty  and  loveliness  of  the  whole  created   universe,   go  and 
compare  an  atom  to  a  world,  a  drop  to  the  ocean,  tho  twink- 
ling of  a  taper  to  the  full  blaze  of  tho  noon-tide  sun  ; — the  n 
may  you  compare  even  this  all-comprehending  constellation  of 
beauty  and  loveliness  with  the  boundless,  the  ineffable  beauty 
and  excellence  of  B.im  who  is  '  tho  brightness  of  tho  Father's 
glory,'  who  is  '  God  over  all,  blessed  for  ever  ! ' 

"  And  yet  wonder,  O  heavens,  and  rejoice,  0  earth ;  this 
great,  and  mighty,  and  glorious  Being  did  for  our  sakes  con- 
descend to  veil  His  glory,  and  appear  on  earth  as  a  Man  of 
sorrows,  whose  visage  was  so  marred  more  than  any  man's, 
and  His  form  more  than  the  sons  of  men.  Oh,  is  not  this 
love  ! — self-sacrificing  love  ! — love  that  is  '  higher  than  tho 
heights  above,  deeper  tliuu  the  depths  beneath '  ?  Oh,  is  not 
this  condescension  ! — self-sacrificing  condescension  ! — conde- 
scension without  a  parallel  and  without  a  name  ?  God  manifest 
in  the  flesh  !  God  manifest  in  tho  flesh  for  the  redemption  of 
a  rebel  race !  Oh,  is  not  this  the  wonder  of  a  world  ?  Is 
not  this  the  astonishment  of  a  universe  ? 

"  And,  in  the  view  of  love  so  ineffable  and  condescension 
so  unfathomable,  tell  me,  oh  tell  me,  if  it  would  seem  aught 
so  strange — I  will  not  say  in  the  eye  of  poor,  dim,  beclouded 
humanity — but  in   the   eye   of    that   celestial  hierarchy  that 


356  LIFE   OP   DR.    DUFF.  1837. 

caused  heaven's  arclies  to  ring  with  antlieras  of  adoring 
wonder  when  they  beheld  the  brightness  of  the  Father's  glory 
go  forth  eclipsed,  mysteriously  to  sojourn  on  earth  and  trend 
the  winepress  alone,  red  in  His  apparel  and  His  garments  dyed 
in  blood  ?  Tell  me,  ob,  tell  me,  if  in  their  cloudless  vision 
it  would  seem  aught  so  marvellous,  so  passing  straugo,  did 
they  behold  the  greatest  and  tho  mightiest  of  a  guilty  race, 
redeemed  themselves  at  so  vast  a  price,  cheerfully  prepared  to 
relinquish  their  highest  honours  and  fairest  possessions,  their 
loveliest  academic  bowers  and  stateliest  palaces  ;  yea,  did  tliey 
behold  Jloyalty  itself  retiro  .and  cast  aside  its  robes  of  purple, 
its  sceptre  and  its  diadem,  and  issue  forth  in  the  footsteps  of 
the  Divine  Redeemer  into  tho  waste  howling  wilderness  of  sin, 
to  seek  and  to  save  them  that  are  lost  ? 

''Ye  grovelling  sons  of  earth,  call  this  fanaticism  if  you 
will;  brand  it  as  wild  enthusiasm ; — I  care  not  for  tho  verdict. 
From  you  I  appeal  to  the  glorious  sons  of  light,  and  ask, 
Was  not  this,  in  principle,  the  very  enthusiasm  of  patriarclis, 
who  rejoiced  to  see  the  day  of  Christ  afar  off,  and  were  glad  ? 
Was  not  this  the  enthusiasm  of  prophets,  whoso  harps,  in- 
spired by  the  mighty  theme,  were  raised  into  strains  of  more 
than  earthly  grandeur?  Was  not  this  the  enthusiasm  of 
angels  that  made  tho  plains  of  Bethlehem  ring  with  the 
jubilee  of  peace  on  earth  and  goodwill  to  the  children  of  men? 
Was  not  this  the  enthusiasm  (with  reverence  be  it  spoken)  of 
the  eternal  Son  of  God  Himself,  when  He  came  forth  travailing 
in  the  greatness  of  His  sti'ength,  to  endure  tho  agony  and 
bloody  sweat  ?  And  if  this  be  enthusiasm  that  is  kindled  by 
no  enrthly  *^re,  and  which,  when  once  kindled,  burns  without 
being  consumed,  how  must  the  hopes  of  the  Church  lie  sleep- 
ing in  the  tomb,  where  it  does  not  exist  ?  Oh  !  until  a  larger 
measure  of  this  divine  enthusiasm  be  diffused  through  the 
Churches  of  Christendom,  never,  never  need  we  expect  to 
realize  the  reign  of  millennial  glory — when  all  nature  shall 
once  more  be  seen  glowing  in  the  first  bloom  of  Eden ;  when 
one  bond  shall  unite  and  one  feeling  animate  all  nations  ;  when 
all  kindreds  and  tribes  and  tongues  and  people  shall  combine 
in  one  song,  one  universal  shout  of  grateful  '  Hallelujah  unto 
Him  that  sitteth  upon  the  throne,  and  to  the  Lamb  for  ever 
and  ever  1 ' " 


JEt.  31.  VINDICATION    OF   HIS    SYSTKM.  35/ 

We  have  not  met  with  a  record  of  the  effect  of  this 
denunciation  and  appeal,  any  more  than  with  a  report 
of  that  whicli  Dr.  Duff  had  uttered  in  the  same  hall 
in  the  previous  year  at  the  anniversary  of  the  Churcli 
Missionary  Society.  But  we  know  that  the  Rev.  John 
Macdonald  had  given  himself  to  the  mission  as  tho 
result  of  Dr.  Duff's  earliest  visit  of  all,  in  18:]5 ;  and 
money  at  least  was  not  stinted,  for  it  was  announced 
to  the  Assembly  held  a  few  weeks  after  that  £700 
had  been  sent  as  the  result  of  that  meeting. 

The  General  Assembly  of  1837  is  memorable  in 
ecclesiastical  annals  for  tho  happily  rare  event  of  a 
contest  regarding  the  modcratorship.  It  is  of  interest 
here  because  of  Dr.  Duff's  "  Vindication  of  the  Church 
of  Scotland's  India  Missions,"  in  reply  to  the  mis- 
understandings and  misrepresentations  which  had 
arisen  out  of  his  speech  of  18o5,  to  which,  as  an 
oratorical  effort,  it  comes  only  second.  The  local 
reporters  wrote :  "  This  eloquent  address  produced, 
amidst  the  profound  silence  with  which  it  was  listened 
to,  occasional  bursts  of  enthusiasm  which  were  irre- 
pressible ;  and  the  peroration  at  its  close  called  forth 
an  expression  of  emotion  in  the  Assouibly  such  as  wo 
have  rarely  witnessed."  The  Assembly  ordered  its 
publication.  Led  by  Dr.  Muir,  of  Glasgow,  in  united 
prayer  the  members  returned  thanks  to  God  for  pre- 
serving the  health  and  life  of  their  dear  brother.  Dr. 
Duff.  The  "  Vindication  "  has  a  value  which  is  more 
than  historical,  from  the  demand  that  the  Church 
should  send  out  its  most  highly  educated  ministers 
and  ablest  preachers  as  missionaries  to  races  like  the 
Hindoos,  and  from  this  still  necessary  answer  to  the 
ignorant  and  the  malevolent ; — 

"  Let  it  never  be  forgotten  that,  as  tho  Governinent  schemes 
of  education  uniformly  exclude  religious  instruction,  this  may 
only  be  a  chauge  from  a  stagnant  superstition  to  a  rampant 


358  LIFE   OF  DR.    DUFF.  1837. 

infidelity.  Wheat  then  is  to  bo  done  ?  Are  the  Christians  of 
Great  Britain  to  stand  idly  aloof  and  view  the  onward 
march  of  tho  spirit  of  innovation  in  the  East  as  unconcerned 
and  indifferent  spectators  ?  Forbid  it,  gracious  Heaven  1 
What  then  is  to  be  done  ?  Why,  if  we  are  faithful  to  our 
trust,  and  wise  in  time,  we  may,  through  the  blessing  of  God, 
be  honoured  in  converting  the  education  plans  of  the  Indian 
Government  into  auxiliaries,  that  may  lend  their  aid  in  pre- 
paring the  way  foi  the  spread  of  the  everlasting  gospel ! 
Wherever  a  Government  seminary  is  founded,  which  shall 
have  the  effect  of  demolishing  idolatry  and  superstition,  and 
thereby  clearing  away  a  huge  mass  of  rubbish;  there  let  us 
bo  prepared  to  plant  a  Christian  institution,  that  shall, through 
the  blessing  of  Heaven,  be  the  instrument  of  rearing  tho 
beauteous  superstructure  of  Christianity  on  the  ruius  of  all 
false  philosophy  and  false  rcligiou.  Wherever  a  Government 
library  is  established,  that  shall  have  the  effect  of  creating  an 
insatiable  thirst  for  knowledge ;  there  let  us  bo  forward  in 
establishing  our  depositories  of  Bibles  and  other  religious 
publications,  that  may  saturate  the  expanding  minds  of  Indian 
youth  with  the  life-giving  principles  of  eternal  truth.  And 
who  can  tell  whether,  in  this  way,  by  *  redeeming  the  time' — 
by  seizing  the  present  golden  opportunity — we  may  not  be 
privileged  to  behold  all  the  Government  schemes  of  educa- 
tional impi'ovement  in  India  overruled  by  a  gracious  superin- 
tending Providence  for  tho  ultimate  introduction  of  Messiah's 
reign  ? 

"  From  having  formerly  said  so  much  on  the  power  of  useful 
knowledge  in  destroying  the  systems  of  Hiudooisra,  it  has  been 
strangely  concluded  by  some  that  our  object  has  been  to 
reform  tho  natives  of  India  by  means  of  '  knowledge  without 
religion.'  Need  I  say  that  no  conclusion  could  possibly  bo 
more  unfounded  ?  It  is,  indeed,  most  true  that,  for  reasons 
which  have  more  than  satisfied  many  of  the  wisest  and  most 
devoted  Christians  in  this  land,  I  have,  with  uniform  and 
persevering  earnestness,  advocated  tho  universal  diffusion  of 
sound  knowledge  in  India.  Not  contented  with  seeing  such 
knowledge  ooze  out  in  scanty  drippings,  I  have  toiled  and 
laboured,  in  conjunction  with  others,  to  pour  it  out  in  copious 
streams  that  may,  one  day,  cover  the  whole  land  with  the 
swelling   tide   of    reason    uud    intelligence.     This,   however. 


JEt.  31,  niS  ALLIANCE  OF  EELIGION  WITH  KNOWLEDGE.        359 

happens  to  be  only  one-half  of  any  statement  that  I  have  ever, 
anywhere,  made  on  the  subject.  And  what  right  has  any  one, 
in  reason  or  in  justice,  to  fasten  on  one-half  of  a  statement, 
and  deal  with  that  half  as  if  it  were  the  whole  ?  Strongly  and 
sincerely  as  I  have  pled  for  the  diffusion  of  sound  general 
knowledge  in  India,  have  I  not,  on  every  occasion,  insisted 
as  strongly  on  the  contemporaneous  diirusion  of  religious 
truth  ?  Have  I  not  even  laboured  to  demonstrate  that,  for  the 
best  interests  of  man  in  time  and  eternity,  the  former  should 
ever  be  based  on  the  latter — pervaded  with  the  spii*it  of  it 
throughout  and  made  to  terminate  in  its  exaltation  and 
supremacy  ?  Have  I  not  ever  contended  for  the  holy  and 
inseparable  alliance  of  both  ? — for  the  reciprocal  inter-blending 
of  their  different,  though  not  uncongenial,  influences  ?  And 
if  one  or  other  must  have  the  precedency,  either  as  respects 
priority  of  time  or  dignity  of  position,  in  the  mighty  work  of 
regenerating  a  corrupt  world ;  in  the  uaino  of  all  that  is 
reverend  and  just,  let  that  be  selected  for  the  honour  which, 
by  inherent  superiority  and  excellence  of  nature,  is  pre- 
eminently entitled  to  it. 

"  Without  '  useful  knowledge  '  man  might  not  live  so  com- 
fortably in  time  :  without  *  divine  knowledge  '  eternity  must 
be  lost.  How  then  could  the  missionaries  of  the  Church  of 
Scotland — the  missionaries  of  a  Church  first  loose:ied  from 
Popery  by  the  Wisharts  and  Hamiltons,  subsequently  eatab- 
lishod  by  the  Knoxes  and  ]Mclvillea,  and  onwards  perpetuated 
by  the  Rutherfords  and  Hulyburtons — how  could  we  dare  to 
sacrifice,  at  the  shrine  of  a  spurious  liberality,  that  highest  and 
sublimest  knowledge,  whose  ennobling  truths  many  of  these 
worthies  so  heroically  died  to  testify  ?  Or,  if  we  dared  thus  to 
act  the  part  of  degenerate  children,  how  could  we  abide  the 
piercing  glance  of  rebuke  which  they  would  cast  upon  us,  if 
recalled  from  the  realms  of  day  to  witness  our  treacherous 
cowardice  ?  And  how  might  we  not  feel,  even  now,  as  if  their 
very  ashes  would  speak  out  of  the  tomb,  and  their  blood  from 
under  the  altar  cry  out  against  us  !  Such,  indeed,  and  so 
strong,  are  my  own  convictions  of  tho  vast  importance  of 
useful  knowledge  in  the  great  work  of  reforming  India,  that 
were  this  venerable  house  to  forbid  the  diffusion  of  it  in 
connection  with  its  own  mission,  I,  for  one,  would  feel  myself, 
however  reluctantly,   constraiued  at   once   to   relinquish  the 


360  LIFE    OF   DE.    DUFF.  1837. 

honourable  position  wliicli  it  has  been  pleased  to  assign  to  me. 
But  such,  and  so  overwhelming,  are  my  convictions  of  the 
immeasurably  superior  importance  of  that  higher  knowledge, 
which  unseals  the  fountain  of  Immanuel's  love,  that — sooner 
than  consent  wilfully  to  withhold  it  for  an  hour  from  the 
famishing  millions  of  India,  or  of  any  other  land,  in  deference 
to  the  noxious  theories  of  certain  propagandists  of  the  present 
day — I  would  lay  down  my  head  upon  the  block,  or  commit 
this  body  to  the  flames  ! 

"  I  feel  assured,  however,  that,  so  far  as  this  house  is  con- 
cerned, it  will  never  fall  into  either  of  these  extremes.  Not- 
withstanding the  charges  of  religious  bigotry  that  have  been 
so  profusely  heaped  upon  it,  this  house,  like  its  noble  reform- 
ing ancestry,  has  been,  is  now,  and,  I  trust,  ever  will  be,  the 
consistent,  the  enlightened  advocate  of  all  really  useful  know- 
ledge throughout  the  wide  domain  of  families,  schools  and 
colleges,  whether  in  this  or  in  other  lands.  And,  notwith- 
standing the  charges  of  secular  convergency  that  have  been  as 
abundantly  levelled  at  it,  this  house,  like  its  noble  reforming 
ancestry,  has  been,  is  now,  and,  I  trust,  ever  will  be,  the 
intrepid,  the  unbending  advocate  of  a  thorough  Bible  instruc- 
tion, as  an  essential  ingredient  in  all  sound  education,  whether 
on  the  banks  of  the  Forth  or  on  the  banks  of  the  Ganges. 
Yea,  may  I  not  be  permitted  with  empliasis  to  add,  that,  sooner 
than  consent  to  surrender  this  vital  principle,  which  is  one 
of  the  main  pillars  in  the  palladium  of  the  Protestantism  of 
these  realms,  this  house  is  prepared,  as  in  times  of  old,  to 
submit  to  dissolution  by  the  strong  arm  of  violence  ? — and  its 
members,  like  their  fathers  of  the  Covenant,  prepared  once 
more  to  betake  themselves  to  the  dens  and  caves  of  the  earth 
— to  wander  by  the  lonely  shore  or  over  the  desert  heath, 
to  climb  the  mountain-steep  for  refuge,  or  secretly  assemble  to 
worship  in  '  some  deep  dell  by  rocks  o'ercanopied '  ? 

"  Let  it,  then,  ever  be  our  distinguishing  glory  to  arbitrate 
between  the  advocates  of  untenable  extremes.  Let  us,  on  the 
one  hand,  disown  the  bigotry  of  an  unwise  pietism,  by  re- 
solving to  patronis3  to  the  utmost,  as  in  times  past,  the  cause 
of  sound  literature  and  science — lesO,  by  our  negligence,  in 
this  respect  we  help  to  revive  the  fatal  dogma  of  the  dark 
ages,  that  what  is  philosophically  true  may  yet  be  allowed  to 
be  theologically  false.     And  let  us,  on   th^  other  hand,  de- 


^t  31.  EXTREMES  OF  INFIDELITY  AND  UNWISE  PIETISM.      36  I 

nounce  the  bigotry  of  infidelity,  or  religious  indifference,  by 
resolving  to  uphold  the  paramount  importance  of  the  sacred 
oracles,  in  the  great  work  of  christianizing  and  civilizing  a 
guilty  Avorld.  Let  us  thus  hail  true  literature  and  true  scienco 
as  our  very  best  auxi  .iries — whether  in  Scotland,  or  in  India, 
or  in  any  other  quarter  of  the  habitable  globe.  But,  in 
receiving  these  as  friendly  allies  into  our  sacred  territory,  let 
us  resolutely  determine  that  they  shall  never,  never,  bb  allowed 
to  usurp  the  throne,  and  wield  a  tyrant's  sceptre  over  it.'' 

The  foresight  and  the  faith,  the  culture  and  the 
self-sacrifice  of  that  passage,  reveal  the  height  and 
the  breadth  of  the  speaker's  Christian  statesmanship. 
Every  year  since  he  spoke  it  has  only  given  new  force 
to  its  truth,  new  reason  for  regret  that  the  Church 
and  the  Government  alike  were  not  wise  in  time  to 
seize  the  golden  opportunity.  Even  Lord  William 
Bentinck's  Government  had  refused  the  Mission  Colleo-e 
a  grant-in-aid  in  recognition  of  the  secular  instruction 
it  gave,  lest  the  Company,  which  was  a  partner  with 
the  priests  of  Jugganath  in  their  gains  from  the 
deluded  pilgrims,  and  which  ordered  its  Christian 
officers  and  Muhammadan  sepoys  to  salute  t^e  ele- 
phant-headed, pot-bellied  idol  Gunputty,  should  hurt 
the  religious  feelings  of  the  natives.  The  Mutiny 
came,  and  brought  the  catholic  universities  with  it. 
The  Mutiny  passed — but  at  what  a  price  ?  In  vain, 
to  this  hour,  by  gagging  the  press  and  imprisoning 
libellous  or  treasonable  editors,  does  the  Government 
try  to  undo  the  evil  effects  of  the  undiluted  and  rigid 
secularism  of  its  schools  and  colleges.  It  goes  on 
sowing  the  wind  as  no  other  Government  on  earth 
does  or  in  history  has  ever  done.  Woe  to  India 
and  to  the  Church — to  the  three  Churches  of  Scotland 
especially  which,  in  Duff  and  Wilson,  and  now  in  Dr. 
Shoolbred,  have  been  honoured  to  lead  the  way — if 
this  warning  is  forgotten  1 


I 


362  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUIF.  1837. 

Dr.  Duff  went  further.  The  spiritual  reformation 
of  the  varied  peoples  of  India  he  saw  must  be  effected 
by  themselves  when  foreigners  had  thus  handed  on 
the  divine  torch  to  '''  the  Luthers  and  the  Calvins  and 
the  Knoxes  of  Hindostan  " : — 

"Our  objcctj  therefore,  is  not  local  or  partial,  individual  or 
tempoi'ary.  It  is  vast  and  all-comprehensivo.  It  is  nothing 
less  than  intellectaally  and  spiritually  to  reform  the  universal 
mind  of  India ;  and  not  merely  so,  but  to  embody  the 
essential  spirit  of  the  reformation  in  improved  institutions, 
that  sliall  perpetuate  its  blessings  to  latest  ages.  But,  has  it 
ever  been  heard  of,  that  a  great  and  permanent  reformation, 
in  any  land,  has  been  the  work  of  a  day,  or  a  year,  or  even  a 
single  age  ?  Never,  never.  A  great  reformation  is  not  merely 
the  pregnant  cause  of  innumerable  happy  effects : — it  is  itself 
but  the  aggregate  effect  of  innumerable  predisposing  causes, 
that  may  have  been  accumulating  for  centuries,  ere  they 
became  ripe  for  explosion.  Viewed  in  this  respect,  the  Re- 
formation of  Luther  has  been  well  compared  to  the  rapids  of 
a  river,  in  its  precipitous  passage  from  some  mountain  range 
to  the  level  plains  below.  Now,  for  India  we  not  only  con- 
template a  religious  reformation,  as  effective  as  that  of  Luther 
in  Europe,  but  a  reformation  still  more  pervasive,  and  more 
thoroughly  national. 

"As  yet,  however,  we  are  only  defiling  among  the  wild, 
upland,  and  mountain  ranges  of  Hindooisra,  with  its  bleak 
wastes  of  fable,  its  arid  knolls  of  prejudice,  its  frowning 
crags  of  superstition,  its  towering  eminences  of  idolatry. 
But  already,  blessed  be  God,  after  the  long  dark  night  of 
forty  centuries,  has  the  Sun  of  righteousness  begun  to  gild 
the  Eastern  horizon.  Already  are  His  earliest  beams  seen 
reflected  from  the  frozen  summits.  Already  are  there  drop- 
pings of  truth  on  many  a  rocky  heart.  Already  are  there 
under- currents  of  inquiry,  that  shall  one  day  emerge  from  the 
hidden  recesses  of  individual  minds.  Already  are  there  evan- 
gelical founts  that  send  forth  their  little  rills  of  saving  know- 
ledge. Already  are  the  clouds  fast  gathering,  surcharged 
with  the  waters  of  salvation,  and  ready  to  pour  down  their 
copious  showers.     And  soon   may  the   swollen  brooks  unite 


JEt  31.         nE  CONFIDENTLY  AITEALS  TO  POSTERITY.  363 

into  rivers,  and  rivers  into  a  mighty  stream  of  quickoninj^ 
influences.  For  some  years  more,  the  mighty  stream  itself 
may  continue  to  flow  on  through  comparatively  barren  and 
unanimated  solitudes.  At  length,  impatient  of  restraint,  it 
must  burst  its  accustomed  boundaries,  and,  dashing  headlong, 
in  the  foam  and  thunder  of  a  cataract  of  reformation,  it 
will  gently  glide  into  the  peaceful  under-vale  of  time.  There 
it  shall  roll  on  in  its  majestic  course,  overspreading  its  banks 
with  the  verdure  of  righteousness,  and  pouring  the  fertility 
of  paradise  into  its  pastures  of  gospel  grace,  till  it  finally 
disappear  and  is  lost  in  the  shoreless  ocean  of  eternity  ! 

"  Persuaded,  as  I  feel,  that  such  is  our  present  position 
among  the  incipient  processes  that  shall,  in  due  time,  unite 
and  issue  in  so  glorious  a  consummation,  I,  for  one,  am  cheer- 
fully willing  to  toil  on,  for  years,  in  feeding,  if  it  be  but  one 
of  the  little  rills  of  awakening  influence, — though  I  should 
never  live  to  behold  their  confluence  into  the  mighty  stream 
of  sequences,  with  its  rushing  cataract,  and  waving  harvest 
gladdening  its  after-course.  And,  as  regards  the  ultimate 
realization  of  the  magnificent  prospect,  I  would,  even  on  a 
dying  pillow,  from  a  whole  generation  of  doubters  confidently 
appeal  to  posterity.' 


)i 


We  have  seen  how  of  his  first  four  converts  three 
had  become  teachers,  and  were  soon  to  become 
preachers  of  the  gospel,  but  under  the  Church  of 
England,  the  London  and  the  American  Missionary- 
Societies,  because  the  Church  of  Scotland  was  not 
prepared  to  send  forth  the  young  evangelists  in  her 
own  name.  Dr.  Bryce,  who  had  retired  from  the 
ecclesiastical  service  in  Bengal,  rose  in  the  General 
As.'-  nbly  "  after  the  heart-stirring  and  transcendently 
eJoqaent  speech  "  of  Dr.  Duff,  to  tell  its  members  how 
something  at  least  was  to  be  done  to  remedy  this  for 
the  future.  The  Assembly  of  1834  had  created  three 
presbyterial  bodies  at  Calcutta,  Bombay  and  Madras, 
which  united  in  sending  representatives  to  the  central 
and  highest  court.  These  bodies  drew  up  a  course  of 
study  to  be  followed  by  converts  who  sought  to  be 


364  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFf.  1838. 

licensed  preacliers  and  ultimately  orda;ncd  missionaries 
to  their  countrymen.  In  attempting  to  fix  this  course, 
said  Dr.  Bryce,  "  the  presbytery  felt  that  a  very 
great  latitude  must  be  held  as  allowed  to  them,  alone 
acquainted  as  they  could  be  with  local  circumstances. 
But  of  this  latitude  they  felt  disinclined  to  avail 
themselves  beyond  the  necessity  of  the  case,  and 
after  the  most  mature  deliberation  given  to  the  sub- 
ject, they  determined  to  follow  generally  as  a  model, 
and  as  far  as  practicable,  the  course  pursued  at  our 
Divinity  halls  at  home."  We  do  not  know  how  far 
this  decision  would  have  been  modified  had  Dr.  Duff 
been  in  Calcutta,  although  his  letter  at  page  281  seems 
to  imply  that  he  would  have  followed  the  Scottish 
model  less  slavishly.  While  we  admire  the  determi- 
nation to  secure  a  learned  as  well  as  godly  native 
ministry,  shown  in  the  rule  which  compels  Bengalee, 
Marathee,  Goojaratee,  Tamul,  and  even  simple  Son- 
thalee  converts  to  pass  a  satisfactory  examination  in 
Hebrew,  Greek  and  Latin,  and  to  sign  the  historical 
documents  of  the  Scottish  Churches  before  being 
licensed  to  preach,  we  are  compelled  by  hard  facts 
aL  well  as  common  sense  to  ask  if  it  is  thus  we  shall 
raise  or  equip  native  Luthers.  Is  it  a  Christian 
Nanuk  or  a  Hindoo  Calvin  that  India  needs  ?  As  the 
story  of  the  mission  goes  on  we  shall  meet  with  able 
Bengalee  converts,  made  preachers  and  missionaries 
because  they  have  satisfied  the  presbytery  according 
to  Dr.  Bryce's  still  enforced  "  course  of  study."  But 
financially  as  well  as  ecclesiastically  and  even  spirit- 
ually, this  parody  of  Western  theological  training  has 
worked  so  badly  that  the  three  Scottish  Churches 
have  been  asked  by  their  missionaries  to  sanction 
an  evangelical  course  and  creed  more  like  those  -of 
the  Apostles  and  the  Church  at  Antioch,  and  not 
less   thorough  and  pure  than  those  of   covenanting. 


JEt  32.  REST  AT    EDRADOUR.  365 

much-sufFerlng,  often  testifying  and  still  sorely  divided 
Scotland.  The  Church  of  India  has  grown  so  far  out 
of  infancy  that  it  asks  to  be  freed  from  the  controver- 
sial swaddling-bands  of  the  West. 

After  again  visiting  some  of  the  presbyteries  in  the 
south  of  Scotland,  Dr.  Duff  began  his  preparations 
for  returning  to  India.  But  he  was  premature.  Ilis 
general  health  was  suffering  so  greatly  that  ho  was 
detained,  and  was  even  forbidden  to  attend  the  Assem- 
bly of  1838,  by  his  medical  adviser,  Dr.  Macwhirter, 
who  had  been  for  years  physician  to  the  Countess  of 
Loudoun,  wife  of  the  Marquis  of  Hastings,  Governor- 
General  of  India.  Dr.  Macwhirter  when  in  Calcutta 
had  the  reputation  of  being  an  exceedingly  skilful 
physician,  while  he  was  one  of  the  most  gentle  and 
amiable  of  men.  After  full  personal  inspection  and 
all  manner  o-f  inquiries,  the  physician  lifted  up  his 
hands  in  astonishment,  expressing  the  utmost  surprise 
that,  with  a  body  so  weakened  by  general  as  well  as 
special  disease,  and  so  exhausted  by  the  prodigious 
labours  undergone.  Dr.  Duff  had  been  able  to  perse- 
vere, though  at  the  same  time  he  had  done  so,  un- 
consciously to  himself,  not  only  at  the  risk  of  perma- 
nent injury  bub  of  premature  death.  "  You  are  not 
at  all  in  a  fit  state  to  return  to  India,"  said  Dr.  Mac- 
whirter. "  You  must  have  months  of  perfect  quiet 
under  proper  medical  treatment  with  a  view  to  re- 
cruiting. If  you  can  really  submit  to  this,  since 
you  are  still  but  young  in  years  and  evidently  have 
a  singularly  wiry  and  iron  constitution,  my  medical 
judgment  is  that,  after  a  reasonable  time  you  will  be 
so  far  recruited  as  to  warrant  you  to  return.  My 
earnest  advice  to  you,  therefore,  is  at  once  to  return  to 
your  quiet  Highland  home,  where  by  correspondence 
I  can  perfectly  regulate,  from  day  to  day  if  need 
be,  your  regimen  and  medical  treatment;   there  you 


366  LIFE   OP  DR.    DUFP.  1838. 

will  have  the  tender,  nursing  care  of  the  members 
of  your  own  family  about  you."  Thus  most  of  the 
autumn,  and  a  considerable  part  of  the  winter  of 
1838-30,  was  spent  at  Edradour. 

In  that  quiet  and  beautiful  retreat  Dr.  Duff  only 
exchanged  the  voice  for  the  pen.  From  all  parts  of 
the  kingdom  and  from  other  lands  he  was  applied  to 
for  counsel  or  information  or  help  on  the  most  catholic 
grounds.  Among  others  whom  his  earliest  addresses 
had  roused  were  "  a  few  friends  of  the  missionary 
enterprise  in  Scotland,"*  as  they  described  themselves, 
who  offered  two  prizes,  of  two  hundred  and  fifty 
guineas  in  all,  for  the  best  essays  on  "  The  Duty, 
Privilege,  and  Encouragement  of  Christians  to  send 
the  Gospel  of  Salvation  to  the  Unenlightened  Nations 
of  the  Earth."  Dr.  Duff,  with  whom  Dr.  Chalmers 
and  Professor  M'Gill,  of  Glasgow,  were  associated  as 
promoters  of  the  philanthropic  enterprise,  conducted 
a  remarkable  correspondence  on  the  subject,  declaring 
that  if  he  had  the  means  he  would  himself  supply 
the  money.  This  is  the  first  illustration  in  Scotland 
of  what  we  have  seen  in  Bengal — his  conviction  that 
for  foreign  missions,  as  for  all  good  objects,  the  press 
is  an  agency,  not  so  powerful  as  the  pulpit  in  the 
spiritual  region,  but  more  extensive  and  effective  in 
its  influence  on  the  mass  of  mankind.  To  the  last 
he  complained  that  it  was  far  too  much  neglected  by 
the  Church  as  a  weapon  of  good.  The  adjudicators, 
who  were  Professor  Welsh,  Dr.  Wardlaw,  the  Rev. 
Henry  Melvill,  Dr.  Jabez  Bunting,  and  the  Rev.  T.  S. 
Crisp,    representing    all    the    evangelical   Churches, 

*  Mr.  R.  A.  Macfie,  of  Dreghorn,  who  subsequently  organized 
the  Liverpool  Conference  of  Missionaries,  iuforms  us  that  these 
friends  were  bis  father;  Mr.  John  Wright,  jun,,  father-in-law  of 
the  Rev.  Charles  Brown,  D.D. ;  and  the  late  Thomas  Fairnie,  of 
Greenock,  etc. 


^t.  32.  DIl.    CIIALMEllS.  367 

awarded  tho  prizes  to  Dr.  Harris,  the  president  of' 
Cliesliiint  College,  and  to  Dr.  R.  Winter  Hamilton,  of 
Leeds.  The  essays  were  published,  but  not  in  a 
cheap  form  which  would  have  sent  them  into  every 
house ;  several  thousands  of  both  were  sold.  A 
catholic  narrative  and  exposition  of  the  foreign  mis- 
sionary movement  from  the  beginning  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  to  the  present  day,  popular,  accurate, 
condensed,  and  including  Romish  missions,  is  still  a 
desideratum. 

When  fairly  restored  to  health,  towards  the  summer 
of  1839,  Dr.  Duff  prepared  himself  for  the  consolida- 
tion of  all  the  work  ho  had  been  doing  during  tho 
previous  four  years  towards  making  the  ilirk  of  Scot- 
land permanently  for  the  future  a  Missionary  Church. 
He  sent  out  a  third  missionary  in  addition  to  Mr.  John 
Macdonald  and  Dr.  Murray  Mitchell ;  he  broadened 
the  movement  for  female  education  in  the  East;  he 
spoke  his  farewell  counsels  to  the  country  through  tho 
General  Assembly ;  he  left  his  lectures  on  "  India  and 
India  Missions,"  to  quicken  the  missionary  spirit  in 
his  absence ;  and  he  made  the  final  arrangements  for 
giving  Bengal  a  central  college  worthy  of  the  higher 
Christian  education.  In  all  he  had  the  constant  sup- 
port of  Dr.  Chalmers,  and  the  friendly  hospitality  of 
Dr.  Brunton  alike  in  the  university  and  at  Bilstane 
Brae.  Of  the  former  we  find  him  thus  writing  to  Sir 
Andrew  Agnew,  on  the  17th  September,  1838  :  "  What 
triumph  attends  Dr.  Chalmers's  career  1  How  ought  we 
to  bless  and  praise  our  Heavenly  Father  for  having 
raised  up  so  mighty  a  champion  of  truth  in  troublous 
times !  Truly  it  is  the  duty  of  every  one  that  fears 
the  Lord  to  lift  up  his  arms  as  for  battle,  when  the 
enemy  is  coming  in  on  every  side  like  a  flood.  What 
ineffable  consolation  in  the  assurance,  *  the  Lord 
God  Omnipotent  reigneth  I '  "     By  this  time  it  had 


368  LIFE   OP   DK.    DUFF.  1839. 

.  become  evident  that  the  spiritual  rights  of  the  Kirk, 
guaranteed  by  Scottish  Parliament,  Union  Treaty  and 
Revolution  Settlement,  were  in  danger.  In  May, 
1830,  Lords  Brougham  and  Cottenham  gave  the 
sanction  of  the  highest  appellate  court  to  the  aggres- 
sion of  a  majority  of  the  Scottish  judges  on  these 
rights.  Dr.  Duff  began  to  see  the  purely  spiritual 
work  for  which  a  Church  exists,  which  he  had  done 
side  by  side  Avith  Chalmers  and  Guthrie  in  kirk  ex- 
tension, threatened.  In  1839  the  revenue  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland  for  missionary  purposes  of  all 
kinds  was  fourteen  times  greater  than  it  had  been  in 
1834,  so  that  Chalmers  exclaimed  :  "  We  are  planting 
schools,  we  are  multiplying  chapels,  we  are  sending 
forth  missionaries  to  distant  parts  of  the  world,  we 
have  purified  the  discipline,  we  are  extending  the 
Church  and  rallying  cur  population  around  its  vener- 
able standard."*  All  this  foreign  colonial,  and  home 
missionary  work  was  to  be  extended  far  more  largely 
than  fourteen  times,  by  the  very  ecclesiastical  cata- 
clysm which  in  1843  seemed  certain  to  extinguish  it. 

So  greatly  had  the  Bengal  Mission  been  extended 
under  Mackay  and  Ewart,  working  out  Dr.  DuflF's 
system  with  his  careful  and  constant  support  from 
home,  that  they  were  not  satisfied  with  the  addition  of 
a  third  colleague  in  the  person  of  Mr.  Macdonald. 
The  three  clamoured  for  a  fourth  to  help  them  to  over- 
take the  special  field  in  which  no  other  mission  had 
then  followed  them.  To  their  demands  Dr.  Duff  sent 
this  among  other  replies : — 

"  Edinburgh  College,  January  \hth,  1839. 
"My  Dear  Ewart, — To  your  last  letter  I  purposely 
delayed  replying  till  I  might  have  it  in  ray  power  to 

•  Memoirs  of  Thomas  Chalmers,  D.D.,  LL.D.     By  Dr.  Hanna. 
Vol.  ii.  chap.  27. 


iEt  33      NO  EXCLUSIVELY  SECULAR  WORK  IN  COLLEGE.         369 

communicato  somctliinf^  of  a  dofinito  nature  on  the 
maiQ  practical  point  therein  referred  to.  Tlio  instant 
it  was  received  I  wrote  most  urgently  to  Dr.  B  run  ton, 
pressing  the  necessity  of  immediately  appointing  a 
new  labourer  to  support  you.  Something  was  spoken 
on  the  subject.  But  lets  and  hindrances  seemed  to 
threaten  to  retard  indefinitely.  In  December,  my  own 
health  having  much  improved,  I  resolved  to  visit  Edin- 
burgh— firstj  to  consult  in  person  with  my  medical 
advisers  as  to  my  fitness  for  immediately  returning  to 
Calcutta ;  and  second,  in  the  event  of  that  not  being 
allowed,  to  enforce  the  appointment  of  another.  As 
to  the  first  point, — though  satisfied  with  the  progress 
made  on  the  whole,  it  was  deemed  utterly  inadvisable 
to  attempt  to  return  tih  next  summer.  But,  if  tlie 
Lord  will,  I  have  now  the  certain  prospect  of  turning 
my  face  eastward  in  June  or  July  next.  Meanwhile, 
I  have  laboured  incessantly  in  pressing  the  second 
point,  the  immediate  appointment  of  another.  And 
I  am  sure  you  will  rejoice  to  learn  that  yesterday,  at  a 
meeting  of  the  general  committee,  not  only  was  it  re- 
solved to  appoint  one,  but  the  individual  was  actually 
nominated — and  he  will  lose  no  time  in  setting  sail  to 
join  you.  The  new  colleague  is  Mr.  Thomas  Smith, 
lately  licensed  to  preach  the  gospel — one  who  has  long 
pondered  the  subject  of  personal  engagement  in  the 
missionary  cause,  though  young  in  years.  He  has  a 
fine  missionary  spirit,  and  in  mathematics  and  natural 
philosophy  was  one  of  the  most  distinguished  students 
of  the  session  in  Edinburgh.  He  will  at  once,  there- 
fore, be  able  to  lend  you  effective  aid,  by  taking  up 
any  of  your  own  or  Mr.  Mackay's  departments  in  the 
scientific  part  of  the  course.  He  will  thus  relieve 
you  of  some  of  those  most  onerous  duties  that  have 
devolved  on  you  in  consequence  of  Mr.  Mackay's 
lamented  illness.     We  have  given  Mr.  Smith  to  under- 

6   B 


370  WFE   OF   DB.    DUFF.  1839. 

stand  that  he  may  be  called  on  by  you  to  take  up  the 
very  subjects  which  constituted  Mr.  Mackay's  share 
of  instruction  in  the  Institution.  And  I  am  happy  to 
say  that  he  will  be  prepared,  if  deemed  proper  by  you, 
to  do  so  cheerfully. 

*'  It  will  not  do  for  a  single  moment  to  abate  one 
iota  of  the  educati£)nal  course.  The  committee,  the 
General  Assembly,  the  entire  Church  of  Scotland  is 
publicly  committed  to  it.  If  the  Institution  at  Cal- 
cutta be  allowed  to  drop,  the  sinews  of  war  at  home 
will  be  cut  off,  and  all  the  missionaries  must  either 
return,  or  support  themselves  the  best  way  they  can  on 
the  voluntary  system.  At  this  moment  nothing  would 
reconcile  the  people  of  Scotland  to  any  measure  that 
would  weaken  the  strength  of  the  Institution.  And 
henceforward,  such  is  the  public  feeling  of  intelligent 
thoughtful  people  on  the  subject,  that  the  committee 
dare  not  send  a  missionary  who  will  not  pledge  him- 
self to  join  in  conducting  any  department  of  the  edu- 
cational course  which  may  devolve  upon  him,  either  by 
the  judgment  of  his  brethren  or  the  exigency  of  un- 
forseen  contingencies.  This  does  not  infringe  on  the 
grand  design  of  effecting  a  thorough  division  of  labour 
when  the  number  of  labourers  is  complete — each 
having  that  department  allotted  to  him  in  which  he 
is  known  and  acknowledged  most  to  excel — or  that 
which  may  be  his  forte.  But  this  is  not  to  be  under- 
stood as  limiting  one  so  exclusively  to  one  particular 
department  as  to  exonerate  him  from  taking  some 
share  in  conducting  any  other  when  a  vacancy  may 
temporarily  occur. 

**  I  do  not  altogether  relish  the  idea  of  a  total  se- 
paration or  chasm  being  effected  between  the  strictly 
spiritual  and  what  is  called  the  secular  department. 
Rather,  I  should  say,  there  ought  to  be  no  exclusively 
secular  department.     In  other  words,  in  teaching  any 


^t.  33.  EPISTLE   TO   THEOLOGICAL   STUDENTS.  37 1 

branch  of  literature  and  science,  a  spiritually-minded 
man  mu^t  see  it  so  tauglit  as  not  only  to  prove  sub- 
servient to  a  general  design,  but  bo  more  or  less 
saturated  with  religious  sentiment,  or  reflection,  or 
deduction,  or  application.  In  this  way,  incidentally 
and  indirectly  it  may  be,  yet  most  eifectually,  may 
religious  impression  be  conveyed  even  when  engaged 
in  teaching  literature  and  science.  But  besides  this 
incorporation  of  what  is  religious  with  what  is  secular 
or  scientific,  there  ought  no  doubt  always  to  be  regular 
systematic  instruction  in  what  is  biblical  and  religious. 
And  if  in  this  department  any  one  should  be  allowed 
to  excel,  it  would,  on  the  principle  of  division  of  labour, 
be  well  to  allot  it  to  him,  but  not  n  such  sense  as 
that  any  other  was  precluded  from  teaching  religion, 
or  that  he  was  exempted  from  taking  a  share  in  the 
literary  and  scientific  departments,  in  case  of  necessity 
arising  from  temporary  illness  or  absence. 

"  Now,  my  dear  Ewart,  there  is  at  my  disposal 
something  above  £1,000  in  all.  Do  then  send  me  by 
the  first  steamer  a  complete  list  of  all  your  desiderata 
as  to  books,  philosophical  apparatus,  etc.,  and  I  shall 
endeavour  to  have  all  supplied.  Do  not  miss  a 
steamer  in  sending  me  as  complete  a  list  as  you  can 
furnish,  that  it  may  reach  in  time  to  enable  me  to 
avail  myself  of  it  before  returning  to  join  you.  My 
affectionate  regards  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Macdonald,  Mr. 
Charles,  Mr.  Meiklejohn,  etc.  I  hope  to  reply  to  tho 
old  pundit  ere  long.     In  haste,  affectionately  yours, 

"  Alexander  Duff.'* 

In  St.  Andrew's  Church,  Edinburgh,  on  the  7th 
March,  1839,  Dr.  Duff  him':>elf  presided  at  the  ordin- 
ation of  his  young  colleague,  now  the  Rev.  Thomas 
Smith,  D.D.,  and  the  only  survivor  of  the  prse-Mutiny 
oand.     Dedicated  to  all  students  of  divinity  in  Scot- 


372  LIFE    OF   DR.    DUFF.  1839. 

land,  **  with  miiny  of  whom  the  author  has  enjoyed 
much  general  converse,*'  the  discourse  and  the  charge 
to  the  youthful  missionary  still  form  not  only  the 
most  remarkable  as  it  has  been  the  most  popular  of 
Dr.  Duff's  writings,  but  a  model  to  be  studied  by  all 
candidates  of  theology  of  whatever  Church.  The  mis- 
sionary apostle  himself  described  it  as  "  a  plain  letter 
of  instructions  which  might  prove  really  useful  to  a 
young  and  inexperienced  but  beloved  brother."  The 
epistle  has  just  enough  of  an  autobiographic  element 
to  give  it  a  fascination  which  every  year  will  increase 
as  the  events  of  the  decade  ending  1839  are  thrown 
farther  back  in  the  history  of  India  and  of  its  Church. 
*'  Missions  the  Chief  End  of  the  Christian  Church ; 
also  the  Qualifications,  Duties  and  Trials  of  an  Indian 
Missionary,"  as  the  publication  of  1839  was  entitled, 
should  be  edited  for  republication  in  its  completeness. 
The  latest  reprint  is  sorely  mutilated.  Many  a  mis- 
sionary has  that  little  epistle  and  charge  sent  to  India, 
China  and  Africa  from  other  Churches. 

The  education  of  the  women  of  India  was  begun 
by  young  ladies  of  Eurasian  extraction,  in  Calcutta, 
under  the  Baptist  missionaries  so  early  as  April,  1819. 
Mrs.  Wilson  followed,  in  the  same  city,  in  1822.  But 
Bombay,  if  later,  soon  distanced  the  rest  of  India,  be- 
cause of  the  absence  of  caste  among  the  Parsees,  the 
greater  freedom  of  the  social  life  of  the  Marathas  than 
that  of  the  Bengalees,  and  the  readiness  of  Mrs.  Mar- 
garet Wilson  to  take  advantage  of  both.  Hence,  in 
1837,  a  Bombay  officer.  Major  Jameson,  began  in  Scot- 
land the  formation  of  the  Ladies'  Societv  for  Female 
Education  in  the  East.  Still  it  was  long  till,  in  any 
part  of  India,  it  was  possible  to  bring  girls  of  respect- 
able and  cas\.e-bound  families  under  Christian  or  even 
secular  instruction,  with  the  exception  of  Parsee  ladies. 
On  his  first  visit  to  England  Dr.  Duff  was  asked  to 


^t.  33.  FEMALE    EDUCATION   IN   INDIA.  373 

supply  the  Hon.  and  Rev.  Baptist  Noel  witli  infor- 
mation, wliich  the  preacher  published  as  an  appendix 
to  his  sermon  preached  for  the  Society  in  London  for 
promoting  female  education  in  China,  India  and  the 
East.  He  heartily  supported  Major  Jameson's  move- 
ment in  Scotland.  On  a  recent  visit  to  Penicuik  we 
found  in  a  state  of  active  prosperity  the  hrst  Ladies* 
Society  ;.eon  in  Scotland  for  combined  prayer  and 
work  for  female  education  in  India.  That  society  is 
the  result  of  an  address  by  Dr.  Duff,  of  which  there 
is  no  other  trace.  In  the  forty  years  since,  it  has 
kept  up  an  intelligent  interest  in,  and  has  called  forth 
annually  increasing  work  and  subscriptions  for  the 
evangelizr.tion  of  the  women  of  India,  from  some  of 
the  best  families  of  Midlothian  and  not  a  few  of  the 
cottages  and  farms  of  Penicuik. 

Dr.  Duff's  address  at  the  first  annual  meeting  of 
the  Scottish  Ladies'  Society,  now  more  vigorous  than 
ever  in  two  bands,  not  only  sketched  the  position  of 
women  in  the  East  under  Hindoo  and  Muhammadan 
law  and  practice,  but  outlined  a  policy,  applicable  to 
Calcutta  and  Bengal,  which  he  lived  long  enough  to 
see  in  full  fruition.  That  has  before  been  sketched  in 
the  account  of  the  discussion  in  Bengalee  debating 
societies,  and  as  an  integral  part  of  his  missionary 
educational  system.  It  is  most  tersely  put  in  these 
sentences  of  his  appendix  to  Baptist  Noel's  sermon. 

"From  the  unnatural  constitution  of  Hindoo  so- 
ciety, the  education  of  females,  in  a  national  point  of 
view,  cannot  possibly  precede,  cannot  even  be  con- 
temporaneous with  the  education  of  males.  The 
education  of  the  former,  on  any  great  national  scale, 
must,  fi'om  the  very  nature  of  their  position  which 
those  only  who  have  been  in  India  can  at  all  ade- 
quately comprehend,  follow  in  the  wake  of  the  en- 
lightened   education   of    the    latter.     In    a   word,   a 


374  ^i^^  0^  ^^'  i>^Fr.  1839, 

gGDeration  of  educated  males,  i.e.  educated  after  the 
European  model,  must  be  the  precursor  of  a  genera- 
tion of  educated  females." 

Should  nothing,  then,  be  done  ?  On  the  contrary, 
elementary  education  among  the  few  who  may  be 
induced  to  attend  a  public  school,  and  during  the 
brief  time  before  marriage  and  re-absorption  into 
their  own  idolatrous  system,  should  be  zealously  prose- 
cuted. Christian  philanthropy  will  care  especially  for 
the  outcast  and  the  orphan,  and  the  growing  class  of 
native  Christians  must  be  provided  for.  "  But  there 
is  another  and  far  more  rapidly  increasing  one,  that 
must  annually  swell  the  aggregate  of  those  friendly  to 
female  improvement;  the  multiform  class  that  aims 
at  the  acquisition  of  European  literature  and  science, 
through  the  medium  of  the  English  language.  From 
various  concurrent  causes  thousands  of  native  youth 
have  now  begun  to  flock  to  Government  and  Mis- 
sionary Institutions,  there  to  enter  on  the  career  of 
English  education ;  and,  if  the  future  keep  pace  pro- 
portionately with  the  past,  these  thousands  will  ere 
long  be  multiplied  tenfold,  and  ultimately  a  hundred- 
fold. Now,  it  may  safely  be  laid  down  as  an  un- 
doubted axiom,  that  every  individual  who  receives  a 
thorough  English  education,  whether  he  become  a 
convert  to  Christianity  or  not,  will,  with  it,  imbibe 
much  of  the  English  spirit,  i.e.  become  intellectually 
Anglicised;  and  hence,  will  inevitably  enrol  himself 
in  the  catalogue  of  those  whj  assert  the  right  of 
females  to  be  emancipated  from  the  bondage  of 
ignorance.  This  is  not  a  legitimate  inference  only, 
it  is  a  statement  of  the  results  of  past  experience." 

The  elementary  or  direct  method  has  not  only 
rescued  thousands  of  girls  from  destruction,  aiding 
Government  in  famines  and  providing  wives  for 
Christian  homes ;    but  it  has,  on  the  normal  school 


JEt.  33.         HIS   BOOK,    "  INDIA   AND   INDIA   MISSIONS."        375 

method,  trained  devoted  vernacular  teachers  who 
were  ready  to  enter  the  zananas,  and  to  teach  the 
select  caste  schools,  the  moment  that  tlie  indirect 
influence  had  prepared  the  next  generation  of  women 
to  be  taught.  What  Dr.  Duff  predicted  in  1829-1839 
came  to  pass  twenty  years  afterwards.  We  shall  see 
how  this  policy  has  led  to  the  caste  school  and  the 
zanana  instruction  till  at  least  one  Bengalee  lady 
has  passed  the  matriculation  examination  of  the 
University  of  Calcutta. 

When  residing  with  Dr.  Gordon,  on  the  occasion  of 
Mr.  T.  Smith's  ordination,  that  zealous  secretary  of 
the  committee  suggested  to  him  the  delivering  of  a 
series  of  popular  lectures  in  so  central  a  place  as 
St.  Andrew's  church.  Having  devoted  two  or  three 
weeks  to  the  arrangement  of  his  materials.  Dr.  Duff 
attracted  overflowing  crowds  in  the  foui'  weeks  of 
April  to  hear  those  gorgeous  descriptions,  novel  ex- 
positions, and  thrilling  narratives  which  he  published 
for  the  benefit  of  the  funds  of  the  committee,  to 
whom  the  book  was  dedicated,  under  the  titlo  of 
"  India  and  India  Missions :  including  Sketches  of  the 
Gigantic  System  of  Hindooism  both  in  Theory  and 
Practice."  The  work  soon  reached  a  second  edition, 
and  has  still  a  historical  value,  although  it  may  be 
said  that  oriental  scholarship  has  come  to  exist  only 
since  the  translations  of  Sir  William  Jones  and  the 
essays  of  Colebrooke  were  followed,  chiefly  after  1839, 
by  the  publication  of  the  researches  of  Burnouf  and 
Lassen,  Prinsep  and  John  Wilson,  H.  H.  Wilson  and 
Weber,  Max  Miiller  and  the  brothers  Muir.  Nor  were 
Duff^s  lectures  confined  to  Edinburgh.  We  have 
traces  of  him  in  Liverpool,  both  in  the  Philanthropic 
Hall  and  in  the  Collegiate  Institution,  where  Dean, 
then  Principal,  Howson  induced  him  to  deliver  one 
described  by  a  critic  as  "  of  remarkable  brilliance  and 
power." 


37^^  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1839. 

The  General  Assembly  of  1839  brought  -with  it,  for 
Dr.  Duff,  the  solemn  but  not  sad  duty  of  saying  fare- 
well to  the  country  and  the  Church.  As  a  member 
for  his  native  presbytery  of  Dunkeld  he  spoke  again, 
but  with  fresh  power  and  new  facts,  "  on  the  subject 
of  your  great  missionary  enterprise."  The  contrast 
between  the  past  and  the  present  in  the  highest  court 
of  the  Kirk  was  no  striking  that  he  recalled  the  time 
when  the  venerable  Erskine  cried  out,  '*  Rax  me  the 
Bible,"  that  he  might  prove  to  his  brethren  in  the 
ministry  the  duty  of  preaching  the  gospel  to  the 
heathen.  Against  that  memorable  incident,  only  a 
generation  past,  he  set  the  record  of  converts  and 
Hindoos  about  to  become  themselves  missionaries,  as 
given  in  the  latest  report  of  the  India  mission.  Sad- 
dened for  the  moment  that  he  was  leaving  no  eye- 
witness behind  him  to  feed  with  facts  and  appeals  the 
home  machinery  he  had  organized,  he  said,  "  Public 
meetings  alone  will  never  answer  our  end.  We  must 
descend  to  the  mass  and  permeate  with  vitality  its 
humblest  and  most  distant  atoms.  Without  this  all 
our  missionary,  educational,  and  church  extension 
schemes  must  flag  and  fail.  You  must  get  the  young 
on  your  side,"  he  said ;  "  give  me  the  school  books  and 
the  schoolmasters  of  a  country,  and  I  will  let  any  one 
else  make  not  only  its  songs  and  its  laws,  but  its 
literature,  sciences  and  philosophy  too !  What  has 
made  Brahmanism  the  hoary  power  it  is  but  its 
Shasters  ?  What  has  sustained  the  force  and  passion 
of  Islam  for  centuries  but  the  Koran"  read  in  every 
school  and  college  from  Gibraltar  to  the  Straits  of 
Malacca  ?  So  must  Christians  use  the  Press,  after  his 
outburst  on  which  he  referred  to  his  own  departure  : — 


ti 


Already  is  it  the  boast  of  our  country,  that  it  has  replen- 
ished the  service  of  our  sovereign  with  warriors  and  states- 
men ;  supplied  every  civilized  nation  with  men  accomplished 


iEt.  33.        FAliEWELL  ADDRESS  TO  GENERAL  ASSEMBLY.        377 

in  learned  professions ;  filled  the  exchanges  of  every  nietro- 
polis  in  the  globe  with  entcrprisirg  capitalists ;  sent  intrepid 
adventurers  to  explore  the  most  barbarous  and  inhospitable 
climes.  But  let  us,  through  the  medium  of  works  for  the 
young,  .*id  especially  of  school  books  universally  adopted,  only 
s;ttui'ate  the  juvenile  mind  of  the  nation  with  evangelistic 
principles,  duties,  and  motives,  and  our  country  may  bo 
destined  to  earn  yet  greater  and  more  lasting  fame.  Our 
parochial  schools  may  become  the  rudimental  nurseries,  and 
our  colleges,  and  especially  our  divinity  halls,  the  finishing 
gymnasia  of  a  race  of  men  who  shall  aim  at  earning  higher 
trophies  than  flags  and  standards  rolled  in  blood — nobler 
badges  than  mimic  stars  of  glittering  dust ; — a  race  of  men, 
on  whom  shall  fall  the  mantle  of  the  Eliots  and  the  Brainerds 
of  the  West,  and  the  Martyns  and  Careys  of  the  East. 

" .  .  .  Often,  when  wearied  and  exhausted  under  the 
debilitating  influences  of  a  vertical  sun  and  a  burning 
atmosphere  :  often,  when  depressed  and  drooping  in  spirit,  amid 
the  never-ending  ebullitions  of  a  rampant  heathenism  :  often, 
when  thus  made,  in  some  measure,  to  realize  the  feelings  of 
the  exiles  of  old,  who  by  the  streams  of  Babel  did  hang  their 
harps  upon  the  willows,  and  wept  when  they  remembered 
Zion — often,  often  I  have  retired  to  the  chamber  of  medita- 
tion, on  a  table  of  which  constantly  lay  a  copy  of  '  the  Cloud 
of  Witnesses ; '  and  after  pe/using  some  of  the  seraphic 
utterances  of  our  Renwicks  and  Guthries,  from  the  dungeons 
and  the  scaffolds  of  martyrdom,  often  have  I  fallen  down 
before  the  divine  footstool,  ashamed  and  confounded  on  ac- 
count of  my  faint-heartedness  and  cowardice ;  and  rising  up, 
new -braced  and  invigorated  in  the  faith,  as  often  have  I  been 
made  to  resolve,  through  grace,  to  be  so  faint-hearted  and 
cowardly  no  more.  But  little  did  I  then  think  of  the  fresh 
impulse  and  enjoyment  that  awaited  me,  when  subsequently 
privileged  to  visit  those  regions  of  our  native  land,  that  may 
well  be  termed  the  Judaea  and  Jerusalem  of  persecuting  times. 
I  have  been  in  temples  of  the  most  gorgeous  magnificence ;  J 
have  been  in  palaces  decorated  with  the  glittering  splendours 
of  art;  I  have  been  in  bowers  gladdened  with  perpetual 
summer,  and  clothed  with  never-dying  verdure ; — but  never, 
never  amongst  them  all  have  I  experienced  the  same  pure  and 
elevated   and  ecstatic  emotion  as  within  the  last  two  years. 


378  LIFE  OP  DB,   DUFF.  1839. 

when  traversing  those  bleak  and  dreary  upland  moors,  and 
barren  mountain  solitudes,  that  often  constituted  vhs  only 
home  of  those  devoted  men  of  whom  the  world  was  not 
worthy — that  have  been  consecrated  in  the  eyes  of  posterity 
as  their  birthplace  and  theii'  graves ;  and  over  every  moss, 
and  rock,  and  dell  of  which  once  waved  the  banner  em- 
blazoned, aa  if  in  rebuke  of  the  treason  and  blasphemy  of 
latter  days,  with  the  glorious  inscription, — 

••'For  Reformation 
In  Church  and  State, 
According  to  the  Word  of  God, 
And  our  sworn  Covenants.' 

"  Now,  these  are  the  men  whose  example  wo  are  ever  and 
anon  called  upon  to  imitate.  But  surely,  if  there  be  any  one 
point  more  than  another  in  which  they  have  set  us  the  most 
emphatic  example,  it  is  in  their  cheerful  determination  to  deny 
themselves  and  submit  to  all  manner  of  sacrifices.  Can  we, 
except  in  derision,  be  said  to  emulate  their  conduct,  if  not 
prepared  and  resolved  to  submit  to  like  sacrifices  with  them  ? 
If  all  were  here  present  this  day,  whether  clergy  or  laity,  who 
glory  in  being  the  members  of  a  Church  that  has  been  watered 
and  cemented  by  the  blood  of  martyrs,  might  we  not  demand, 
*  What  substantial  proof  or  pledge  have  ye  ever  yet  given  that 
ye  are  really  prepai*ed  and  resolved  to  tread  in  their  footsteps  ? 
You  profess  to  imitate  their  example  !  Well,  in  order  to  this, 
you  are  called  upon,  like  them,  to  deny  yourselves,  in  order 
the  more  effectually  to  advance  the  cause  of  the  Redeemer/ 

"  In  the  spirit  of  this  resolution  I  originally  went  forth  to 
heathen  lands.  And  though  suddenly  removed  by  an  afliictive 
visitation  of  Providence,  over  which  I  had  no  control,  the 
spirit  of  that  resolution  still  abideth  the  same.  If  the  Lord 
will,  therefore,  my  unaltered  and  unalterable  purpose  is,  to 
return  to  the  scene  of  my  former  labours.  In  adhering  so 
determinedly  to  this  purpose,  I  am  not  unaware  of  the  mis- 
construction and  uncharitable  insinuations  to  which,  in  certain 
quarters,  my  conduct  has  been  subjected.  Now,  though  in 
myself  I  feel  and  confess  that  I  am  nothing,  yea,  '  less  than 
nothing,  and  vanity,'  I  must,  for  the  sake  of  '  magnifying  my 
office,'  be  permitted  to  assert  and  vindicate  the  integrity  of  my 
actuating  motives.    I  would  return  to  the  land  of  my  adoption. 


Mt.  33.       PAEEWELL  ADDRESS  TO  GENERAL  ASSEMBLY.         379 

not  because,  in  the  gross  and  carnalising  judgment  of  somo 
vvorldlings,  I  could  not  do  better  at  homo.     No ;  if  the  earnest 
and  reiterated  entreaties  of  friends  ;  if  the  most  alluring  offers, 
on  the  part  of  some  of  '  the  mighty  and  the  noble  •/  if  the 
most  tempting  '  vitations  to  spheres  of  houour  and  responsi- 
bility, from    10.   a  few  of  the  Christian  people  of  this  laiul, — 
could  liavo  availed  aught,   I  might,   in   the  low,  vulgar    and 
drivelling  sense  of  the  expression,  have  done  better  at  home. 
I  would  go,  not  from  the  restless  spirit  of  wild,  roviug  ad- 
venture.    If   the  animating  principle    had    flowed   from  that 
source,  sure  enough  it  ought  by  this  time  to  have  been  cured, 
in  the   case    of   one   who    twice  suIFored    shipwreck,    barely 
escaping  with   life;    who,  more   than    once,    was    well-nigh 
foundered  amid  the  gales  and  hurricanes  of  the  deep ;   and  who 
was   thrice  brought  to  the  very  brink  of    the  grave  by  the 
noxious  influences  of  an  unfriendly  clime.     I  would  go,  not 
from  any  exaggerated  estimate  or  ambitious  longings  after  the 
pomp  and  luxuries  of  the  East.     No.     Dire  experience  con- 
strains mo  to  say,  that,  for  the  enjoyment  of  real  personal 
comfort,  I  would  rather,  infinitely  rather,  be  the  occupant  of 
the  poorest  hut,  with  its  homeliest  fare,  in  the  coldest  and 
bleakest  cleft  that  flanks  the  sides  of  the  Schehalliou  or  Ben 
Nevis,  than  be  the  possessor  of  the  stateliest  palace,  with  its 
royal  appurtenances,  in  the   plains  of  Bengal.     I  would  go, 
not  from  any  freaks  of  fancy  respecting  the  strangeness  of 
foreign  lands,  and  *he  exciting  novelty  of  labour  among  the 
dwellers  there.     There  I  have  been  already;    and  can   only 
testify  that  the  state  of  the  heathen  is  far  too  sad  and  awful  a 
reality  to  be  a  fitting  theme  for  story  or  for  song, — unless  it 
be  one  over  which  hell  would  rejoice,  and  heaven  weep.     I 
would  go,  not  from  any  unpatriotic  dislike  of  my  native  land, 
or  misanthropic  aversion  from  its  people,  or  its  institutions. 
No  :  for  its  very  ruggedness,  as  the  land  of  '  the  mountain  and 
the  flood,*  I  cherish  more  than  ordinary  fondness.     How  could 
it  be  otherwise  ?     Nestled  and  nursed,  as  it  were,  from  earliest 
infancy,  among  its  wildest  and  sublimest  scenes  : — no  pastime 
half  so  exhilarating  as  the  attempt  to  outrival  the  wild  goat 
in  clambering  from  crag  to  crag,  or  to  outstrip  the  eagle  in 
soaring  to  their  loftiest  summits ;  no  music  half  so  sweet  as 
the  roar  of  the  cataract  among  the  beetling  precipices  of  some 
dark  frowning  ravine  or  solitary  dell ;  no  chariot  and  equipage 


380  LIFE   OP   DR.    DUFF.  1839^ 

half  so  much  coveted  as   the  buoyant  wreaths  of  mist  that 
scoured  atliwnrt  tlio  scalped  brows,  or  curled  their  strange  and 
fantastic  shapes  around  the  ragged  peaks  of  the  neighbouring 
hills.     Hence  a  fondness  for  the  characteristic  scenery  of  my 
native  land,  amounting  almost  to  a  passion — a  passion  which, 
like  every  other,  it  requires  divine  grace  to  modify  and  subdue. 
For  oft   as    I    have  strayed  among   gardens  an(.'  groves,  bo- 
studded  with  the  richest  products  of  tropical  clin.es,  the  in- 
voluntary (ejaculation  has  ever  been,  *  Give  mo  thy  woods,  thy 
barren  woods,  poor   Scotland  ! '     Towards   its  people  I   have 
always    cherished    the    fondest    attachment — an    attachment 
vastly  augmented  by  the  circumstance,  that  from  Pomona,  the 
mainland  of  Orkney,   to  the  Solway  Firth,  there  is  scarcely  a 
city  or  district  in  which  I  could  not  point  out  one  or  more 
personal  friends,  in  whose  Christian  society  I  have  found  re- 
freshment and  delight.     Of  all  its  institutions,  sacred  and  civil, 
I  have  ever  entertained  an  unbounded  admiration — an  admira- 
tion that  has  been  immeasurably  enhanced  by  the  contrast 
which  the  want  of  them  exhibits  in  other   lands.     I  would 
therefore  go,  not  because  I  love  Scotland  less,  but  because 
I  humbly  and  devoutly  trust  that,  through  the  aid  of  divine 
grace,  I  have  been  led  to  love  ray  God  and  Saviour,  and  the 
universal  extension  of  His  blessed  cause  on  earth,  still  more. 
I  would  go  because,  with  the  Bible  in  ray  hands,  I  cannot  see 
what  special  claim  Scotland  has   upon   me,  as  a  minister  of 
Christ,  any  more  than  any  other  land  embraced  within  the 
folds  of  the  everlasting  covenant ;    because,  witii  the  Bible  in 
my  hands,  I  cannot  see  how  a  soul  in  Scotland  can  be  intrin- 
sically more  precious  than  a  soul  in  Greenland,  or  Kaffirland,  or 
Hindostan,  or  any  other  region  on  earth ;    because,  with  the 
Bible  in  ray  hands,  I  cannot  see  that  the  bounds  of  the  Church 
of  Scotland  are  identical  with  the  bounds  of  the  Redeemer's 
kingdom ;    or  that  the  Lord  Jesus,   who  is   no   respecter  of 
persons,  is  the  Redeemer  of  Scotland  rather  than  of  any  other 
realm  included  in  the  emphatic  and  catholic  designations  of 
*  all  the  woi'ld,'  and  '  all  nations.' " 


While  thus  entitled  to  be  exacting,  in  his  Master's 
interest  md  their  own,  towards  others  because  he 
was  not  sparing  of  himself,  the  missionary  was  no  less 


^t.  33-  FAREWELL  HONOURS  DECLINED.  381 

gonorons  in  his  acknowledf^inont  of  tlioso  who  did 
their  duty.  Mr.  Baptist  Noel  had  shown  that  in  tho 
year  1834,  when  tho  whole  income  of  the  United  King- 
dom was  estimated  at  about  514  milHons  sterhntr,  tho 
proportion  assigned  to  missions  and  Bible  societies  of 
all  kinds  was  only  one  seventeen-hundredth  part,  or 
£300,000.  Dr.  Duff  told  of  individuals,  and  especially 
Christian  ladies,  who  had  become  his  fellow-helpers 
in  the  gospel.  One  lady  in  London  raised  £500 ;  her 
example  led  two  at  Inverness*  to  collect  £1,000  in 
pennies,  every  one  of  which  meant  so  much  intelligence, 
prayer  and  faith ;  and  another  aided  the  new  colonial 
scheme  by  supplying  with  four  ministers  the  thirty 
thousand  Scotsmen  then  in  the  island  of  Capo  Breton. 
Still  another  sent  him  £500  in  an  anonymous  note, 
as  "  from  one  who,  having  felt  tho  consolations  of  tho 
gospel,  is  most  anxious  these  should  be  imparted  to  the 
perishing  heathen."  Thus  was  the  Government  price 
of  the  site  (£1 ,600)  for  the  new  college  in  Cornwallis 
Square  contributed  ;  thus  was  the  building  raised ;  and 
thus,  as  we  have  seen  from  the  letter  to  Dr.  Ewart, 
were  a  library  and  philosophical  apparatus  supplied  for 
the  use  of  its  students.  Tnto  this  college  building 
and  equipment  fund,  destined  to  an  unexpected  fate — 
the  disruption  of  1 843 — Dr.  Duff  poured  a  sum  which 
many  to  whom  he  had  been  blessed  offered  him  in  vain 
as  a  personal  gift  for  his  family.     All  that  he  would 

*  Thus  described  by  Dr.  DufF:  "One  of  the  most  peculiar  at- 
tempts was  that  which  originated  with  the  Misses  Macintosh,  of 
Raigmore  House,  Inverness.  Their  father  had  been  the  founder  of 
one  of  the  six  great  commercial  and  banking-houses  in  Calcutta. 
The  scheme  was  io  interest  parties  in  every  parish  iU  Scotland  so 
fis  to  realize  by  pennies  the  sum  of  £1,000.  Through  indefatigable 
exertions,  at  length  the  object  was  really  accomplished,  and  in 
carrying  it  out  no  doubt  a  vast  deal  of  fresh  interest  in  the 
mission  was  diiTused  throughout  the  membership  of  the  Church." 


382  LIFE    OP  DB.    DUFF.  1 839. 

consoTit  to,  of  a  personal  naturo,  was  tlio  publication 
of  his  portrait,  painted  by  William  Coweu,  and  on- 
graved,  in  mezzotint,  by  S.  W.  Reynolds.  The  original 
is  now  in  Calcutta. 

Ho  who  had  stood  alone  in  Calcutta  in  1830  now 
saw  eight  other  miHsionaries  from  the  Church  of  Scot- 
land in  India  all  working  on  his  system  with  an  enthu- 
siasm fu'cd  by  his  own.  And  ho  did  not  stop  there. 
Dr.  Guthrie  had  been  called  to  the  church  of  Old 
Greyfriars  in  Edinburgh  which  he  himsolf  had  refused, 
and  liad  been  there  only  two  years  when  he  wrote  :  "  I 
had  DiifTand  some  others  dining  with  me  the  other  day. 
Duff  was  keen  for  me  to  go  out  to  India.  Dunlop  de- 
clared that  Lord  Medwyn  would  take  out  a  prize  war- 
rant, seeing  that  he  is  risking  some  five  or  six  hundred 
pounds  in  the  new  church  (8t.  John's),  on  the  under- 
standing that  I  was  to  be  minister  thereof."  Ten  years 
after,  when  Guthrie  broke  down  from  overwork,  Duff 
thus  wrote  to  him  from  Calcutta :  "  The  whole  of 
your  remarkable  career  during  the  last  few  years  I 
have  been  following  with  intense  delight ;  your  Manse 
scheme  and  Ragged  School  have  been  bulking  before  my 
mind's  eye  in  a  way  to  fill  me  with  wonder,  aye  and 
devout  gratitude  to  the  God  of  heaven  for  having  so 
extraordinarily  blessed  your  efforts.  From  my  own 
experience  I  find  that  a  season  of  affliction  and  inward 
humiliation  usually  precedes  some  development  of 
spiritual  energy  in  advancing  the  cause  of  the  Lord." 
Puzzled  by  his  refusal  of  any  personal  recognition  of 
his  services  at  home,  friends  on  both  sides  of  church 
politics  begged  that  Dr.  Duff  would  at  least  meet  them 
at  a  public  dinner  or  banquet.  With  his  answer  many 
who  have  been  victims  on  such  occasions,  alike  in 
giving  and  receiving  honour,  will  sympathise  :  "  Fare- 
well dinners,"  he  said,  "  were  never  to  my  taste.  I 
have  always  shunned  them  in  the  case  of  others,  and 


TEt.  33.   THE  SECOND  OHAEQE  OF  DEi»    CUALMEUS.     383 

I  will  not  myself  be  the  object  of  honour.  Tlioy  are 
generally  attended  by  a  mass  of  stereotyped  phrases 
intended  to  bo  flatteries  but  without  honest  meaning. 
Mut  hold  a  religious  service,  and  ask  Dr.  Chalmers  to 
give  me  his  fatherly  counsel  and  admonition."  And 
so  it  came  about  that,  though  the  great  preacher's 
ordination  charge  to  Duff  has  not  seen  the  light,  wo 
have  his  matured  opinion  on  the  Scottis'  missionary 
system,  from  the  economics  of  which  he  received  many 
a  hint  for  his  own  Free  Church  creation  three  years 
after.  Dr.  Ilanna  has  reprinted  the  farewell  charge  of 
1839  in  the  "  Sermons  illustrative  of  different  stages 
in  liis  ministry,"  by  the  man  whom  Mr.  Gladstone  has 
pronounced  the  grandest  of  all  preachers  he  has  hoard, 
in  spite  of  a  distasteful  accent,  although  John  Henry 
Newman  was  one  of  those  preachers. 

"  Ten  years  ago,"  said  the  divinity  professor  of 
sixty  to  the  already  experienced  missionary  of  thirty- 
three  who  stood  before  him  above  a  vast  crowd  in 
St.  George's,  Edinburgh,  "  in  the  work  of  setting  you 
apart  to  your  office  I  expatiated  on  the  nature  and 
evidence  of  conversion  to  God.  *  As  we  have  heard, 
so  have  we  seen  in  the  city  of  the  Lord  of  hosts,  in 
the  city  of  our  God  :  God  will  establish  it  for  ever.' 
Christianity  is  the  manifestation  of  truth  by  the  S[)irit 
to  the  conscience.  It  is  on  some  such  moral  evidence 
that  the  philosophy  of  missions  is  based.  As  we  have 
heard,  so  have  we  seen  :  then  may  it  be  understood 
how,  without  a  sensible  miracle,  there  may  arise  in 
the  mind  a  well-founded  belief  in  the  truth  of  Chris- 
tianity." Thus  had  hhe  first  missionary  of  the  Church 
of  Scotland  devised  his  plan  and  carried  out  the  divine 
policy — "  faith  cometh  by  hearing,  and  hearing  by  the 
word  of  God." 

"By  a  device  of  admirable  skilfu'.ness  and  correspondpnt 
success,  you  have  brought  many  of  tKe  most  iufluential  families 


'y 


84  LIFE    OP   DR.    DUFF.  1839. 


of  nindostan  within  reach  of  the  hearing  of  the  word  of  God. 
You  havf,  instituted  a  school  mainly  of  scriptural  lessons  and 
scriptural  "xenHses.  You  have  practised  no  deceit  upon  the 
natives,  for  all  is  above  board,  and  it  is  universally  known 
that  the  volume  which  forms  the  great  text  and  substratum  of 
your  scholarship  is  the  book  of  the  religion  of  Christians. 
But  you,  at  the  same  time,  have  studied  to  multiply  the  at- 
tractions of  this  school ;  you  have  not  only  iustituLod  a  lecture- 
ship on  the  evidences  of  Christianity,  but,  for  the  purpose  of 
engaging  the  attendance  chiefly  of  the  higher  classes,  you 
have  pressed  into  the  service  both  the  physical  and  the 
mathematical  sciences,  and,  what  might  startle  some,  have 
superadded  the  doctrines  of  political  economy,  and  all  that  the 
votaries  of  science  might  be  lured  within  the  precincts  of 
sacred ness.  It  is  thus  that  many  of  India  of  all  ranks,  and 
especially  of  the  upper  orders  of  society,  have  passed  through 
your  seminary  in  successive  hundreds,  familiarized  with  the 
language  and  seasoned  with  the  subject  matter  of  inspiration. 
It  is  thus  that  many  have  heard  with  the  hearing  of  the  ear, 
and  at  least  been  disarmed  of  all  hostility  to  the  gospel,  and 
some  of  these,  many,  have  been  made  to  see,  and  been  con- 
verted, and  become  the  declared  friends  and  champions  of  our 
faith.  It  delights  me,  sir,  to  know,  as  the  fruit  of  my  in- 
timate converse  and  of  my  acquaintance  with  your  principles 
and  your  thoughts,  that  while  you  have  done  so  much  to 
obtain  an  extensive  hearing  for  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ 
in  the  most  likely  and  promising  quarters  of  human  society, 
you  are  at  the  same  time  fully  and  feelingly  aware  what  that 
high  and  external  quarter  is  whence  alone  the  seeing  comes, 
anu  that  unless  a  blessing,  to  be  evoked  only  by  prayer,  shall 
descend  from  the  sanctuary  above  upon  your  enterprise,  all 
the  labour  you  have  bestowed  upon  it  will  prove  but  a  vain 
and  empty  pf^,rade.  Let  me  earnestly  recommend  the  con- 
tinuance of  this  sacred  and  fruitful  union,  a  union  between 
the  diligence  of  ever-working  hands  and  the  devotion  of  ever- 
praying  hearts.  Men  of  various  moods  and  temperaments,  and 
different  tastes  of  spirituality  and  intellect,  will  be  variously 
affected  by  the  spectacle.  Those  of  shrewd,  but  withal  of 
secular  intelligence,  will  think  lightly  of  your  supplications, 
perhaps  even  speak  contemptuously  of  those  outpourings  of 
the  Spirit  on  which,  I  trusi,  you  will  ever  wait  and  ever  watch 


^t.  33.         DR.  CHALMERS   EULOGISES   HIS   SYSTEM.  385 

with  humblo  expectancy.  Those  of  serious,  but  withal  of 
weak  and  drivelling  piety,  will  think  lightly  of  your  scieuco, 
and  perhaps  even  speak  with  rebuke  of  your  geometry,  and 
your  economics,  and  your  other  themes  of  strange  and  philo- 
sophic nomenclature,  as  things  that  have  in  them  a  certain 
cast  of  heathenish  innovation,  prejudicial  to  the  success,  be- 
cause incongruous  with  the  simplicity  of  the  gospel.  But 
amid  these  reproaches  on  the  right  hand  and  on  the  left, 
persevere  as  you  have  begun  ;  and  whether,  on  the  one  hand, 
they  be  the  cold  rationalists  who  assail  you  with  their  con- 
tempt, or,  on  the  other  hand,  they  be  the  fanatical  religionists 
who  look  on  you  with  intolerance,  continue  to  do  what  all  men 
of  sense  and  of  sacredness  have  done  before,  and  you  will 
at  length  reap  tho  fulfilment  of  the  saying,  that  wisdom  is 
ju&'  "fied  of  her  children.' 


}i 


Having  thus  put  his  imprimatur  on  the  system  in 
language  as  strong  as  even  Dr.  Duff's  when  the  mis- 
sionary vindicated  his  evangelism  alike  against  "  the 
bigotry  of  an  unwise  pietism  "  and  *'  the  bigotry  of 
infidelity,"  Dr.  Chalmers  spoke  with  an  almost  pre- 
dictive reference  to  his  own  coming  scheme  of  Free 
Church  economics,  when  ho  said,  "  You  were  the  first, 
I  believe,  to  set  the  example  of  parsing  from  parish  to 
parish,  and  from  presbytery  to  presbytery  in  behalf  of 
your  own  cause,  and  it  only  needs  to  be  so  carried 
forward  in  behalf  of  other  causes  as  to  fill  the  whole 
length  and  breadth  of  the  land,  in  order  to  reap  a 
tenfold  more  abundant  harvest  from  the  liberalities 
of  the  people  than  has  ever  yet  been  realized."  Re- 
ferring to  his  special  work  of  home  missions  as  not 
a  competing  but  a  co-operating  cause,  he  uttered  a 
truth  which  his  successors  have  generally  though  not 
always  remembered  :  "  Our  two  causes,  our  two  com- 
mittees, might  work  into  each  other's  hands.  Should 
the  first  take  the  precedency  and  traverse  for  collec- 
tions the  whole  of  Scotland,  the  second  would  only 
find  the  ground  more  softened  and  prepared  for  an 

c  0 


386  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1839. 

abundant  produce  to  itself.  It  acts  not  by  exhaustion 
— it  acts  by  fermentation."  And  with  this  glimmer- 
ing of  the  certain  glory,  he  a  second  time  sent  forth 
his  favourite  disciple  and  now  beloved  brother ;  refer- 
ring to  "  the  singularly  prophetic  aspect,  not  merely 
of  the  days  in  which  we  live,  but  both  of  Christendom, 
that  region  you  are  about  to  leave,  and  of  Eastern 
Asia,  that  region  of  ancient  idolatry  whither  you  are 
going ;  for  we  can  notice  on  that  distant  horizon  the 
faint  breakings  of  evangelical  light  which,  like  the 
dawn  of  early  morn,  may  perhaps  increase  more  and 
more  till  the  drying  up  of  the  Euphrates  that  the  way 
of  the  kings  of  the  East  may  be  prepared.** 

We  find  this  note  written  to  Dr.  Chalmers  before 
the  address : — 


« 


BiiiSTANE  BY  LoANHEAD,  Tuesclaijj  8th. 

My  Deae  Sib, — I  thank  you  with  all  my  heart  for 
your  very  kind  note  of  this  morning.  To  receive 
from  you  anew  in  any  form  the  address  of  ten  years 
ago — the  material  of  which  became  food  for  the  white 
ants  of  Bengal,  but  the  moral  of  which  had  been 
previously  incorporated  into  my  mental  constitution — 
will  be  to  me  an  invaluable  boon. 

"  I  am  grieved  to  say  that  I  had  a  pre-engage- 
ment  for  breakfast  on  Thursday  morning,  of  such  a 
nature  that  I  cannot  suspend  it.  But,  if  possible,  I 
shall  endeavour  to  call  on  you  between  ten  and  eleven 
o'clock,  a.m.  I  cannot  express  the  gratification,  the 
comfort,  the  invigoration  of  spirit  which  I  have  ex- 
perienced in  the  very  prospect  of  yottr  giving  me  a 
parting  address  on  Thursday,  for  to  you  I  feel  more 
indebted,  as  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  God,  for 
the  impulse  that  carried  me  to  heathen  lands,  than  to 
any  other  in  the  form  of  mere  man.  With  grateful, 
aff'ectionate  regards,  "  Alexander  Duff.' 


it 


JEt.  33.  ANGLO-INDIAN   PARTINGS.  38 7 

Dr.  DufF  preached  his  farewell  sermon  to  his  own 
people,  in  the  Moulin  parish  kirk  of  his  childhood, 
from  the  text,  "  Finally,  brethren,  farewell."  The 
services,  Gaelic  and  English,  lasted  for  live  hours,  and 
the  crowded  audience  were  in  tears.  On  the  subse- 
quent Monday  evening  he  met  with  them  again,  and, 
after  a  short  address,  shook  hands  with  the  minister 
in  the  name  of  all  the  country  people,  who  had  flocked 
in  from  the  vale  and  the  hillsides  of  Athole.  Then 
followed  the  living  martyrdom  of  Indian  exile,  the 
parting  of  father  and  mother  from  their  four  children. 
The  birth  of  the  youngest,  a  boy,  only  a  few  months 
before,  had  been  to  Dr.  Duff  a  source  of  new  joy  and 
strength  at  a  time  of  depression.  Parents  and  children 
were  not  to  meet  again  for  eleven  long  years. 


CHAPTER  Xin, 

1839-1840. 
EOTPT.^SINAL—BOMBA  T.—MA  D  J? 

Wigliom  and  the  Overland  Route. — Dr.  Duiff as  a  ' 
■wich   to    Civita    Vecchia   with  Cardinal   Wi.seni;i 
Wines  of  France. — Syra. — Alexandria. — Muhami; 
Church  jf  St.  Mark. — The  Pyramids  and  Memplii 
the  Pasha's  Misgovernment  of  Egypt. — Interview 
Patriarch. — Caravan  to  Suez  and  an  Indian  of  tli 
Dr.  Duff  goes  alone  to  Sinai. — Justinian's  Convci 
rine. — Greek   and   Hindostauee. — A  Christian    ' 
Mount  of  Moses. — Letter  to  his  Daughter. — Sii( 
Meeting  with  Wilson  and  Nesbit. — The  Differin 
Western  and  Eastern  India  as  Missionary  FicKi 
Backwardness  of  English  Education  in  Boniba; 
Missions    and    Missionaries    there. — Round    (\i 
Madras  — A  Night  with    Samuel   Hebich   at    3 
Scottish  Mission  iu  Madras. — A  Cyclone  at  Hi 
Hooghly. — Calcutta  again. 

The  Overland  Route,  a  phrase  which  I 
have  any  but  a  historical  meaning  sinc^ 
of  the  Suez  Canal,  had  just  been  made  a  i 
',he  autumn  of  1839,  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Duff  went  forth  to 
India  for  the  second  time.     On  the  ordinary  roll  of 
the  English  martyrs  of  science  the  name  of  Thomas 
Waghorn  is  not  to  be  found.     It  has  been  left  to  the 
French  to  do  justice  to  the  memory  of  the  man  who, 
amid  obstruction,  obloquy  and  injustice  ending  in  a 
pauper's  death,  first  opened  the  British  overland  route 
to  India  in  1830.     When  M.  Ferdinand  de  Lesscps 
created  the  consequent  of  that  by  cuttinp:  ♦^^-^  '  n^inl 


III  (jijcu  sL'izud   by  his  creditors.     Thomas  Wag- 


*  In  the  eight  years  ending  1878,  the  number  of  vessels  which 
have  passed  through  the  Suez  Canal  has  been  10,988,  yielding 
eight  millions  sterling  in  dues.  Of  these  vessels  8,007  were  British, 
which  paid  six  millions  sterling  out  of  the  eight.  In  the  last  year, 
1878,  of  96,303  passengers  who  passed  through  the  Canal  in  1,593 
ships  with  a  measurement  of  3,269,178  tons, -besides  the  many  who 
crossed  the  isthmus  by  railway,  28,;:5o9  were  British  soldiers  and 
l'i,775  Ani^lo-TiuUans,  or  -irijlM  iu  all. 


390  LIFE   OP  DE.    DUFF. 

horn  died  in  the  misery  of  debt,  while  the  Pen 
and  Oriental  Company  sent  its  first  steamers,  it 
along  the  path  he  had  persistently  tracked  on 
complete   the   scandal,  not  seven   years  have 
since  his  aged  sisters  were  driven  to  ask  the  p\i 
support,  while  the  Government  which  had  so 
their  brother  raised  a  revenue  of  fifty  millions 
a  year  from  India  and  paid  nearly  half  a  iin 
subsidies  for  the  postal  traffic  on  his  overlaiui 
So  it  is  that  the  Latin  poet's  experience  is  stil! 
"Sic  vos  non  vohis"     The   bees   of  humanit 
honey,  but  not  for  themselves. 

When  Dr.  Duff  resolved  to  return  to  India  1 
was,  in  1839,  still  Waghorn's  overland  route,  li 
the  story  of  the  heroic  pioneer  so  far,  and  he  i 
to    run   the   risk.     *'A  man  above   the   count 
activity,   energy  and  enterprise!"  was   his  in 
exclamation  then,  before  the  eager  life  had  hvc 
a  miserable  tragedy  by  an  ignorant  country 
ungrateful  Government.     Hotels  in  Egypt,  swi 
vans  instead  of  camels  in  the  desert,  and  a 
with  cabin  accommodation  for  twelve  passeng(  i 
the    marvellous    facilities   supplied   by   tins    i 
benefactor  in  such  circumstances.     Thus  ho  li 
verted  the  nearly  five  months  of  1830  into  tlio 
and  a  half  of  1839  between  London  and  Boml  > 
as  he  pointed  the  road  to  the  present  rcductioi 
time  to  sixteen  days.     Dr.  Duff  had  to  find  ! 
first  to  Bombay,  at  the  request  both  of  Dr. 
and  the  Kirk's  committee,  that  he  might  conit 
counsel  his  colleagues  there  after  the  keen  excii 
caused  by  the  baptism  of  the  first  two  converts  ivum 
Parseeism.      His    most   rapid   course   thus  lay  from 
Harwich  to  Antwerp  and  Brussels,  south  by  Paris  to 
Marseilles,  and  thence  by  steamer  to  Syra,  there  to  join 
the  mail  steamer  from  Constantinople  to  Alexandria. 


M'DINAL  WISEMAN.  39* 

s  showed  more  than  tho 

^^-Tudian.    By  reading 

^lad  gone  over  his 

■lligent  onjoy- 

(lour  of  the 

Mio  broad 

'.(1   or 


i;il!v' 


step    iu 

whom  Eiisi^hiii  ■ 
Antwerp  Dr.  Dull 
created  by  the  flow  uL  i 


392  LIFE   OP   DE.    DUFF.  1839. 

earliest  overland  route — by  Solomon's  cities  in  tlio 
desert,  the  Danube  and  the  Rhine  to  the  Dutch  East 
India  Company's  docks.  In  Brussels,  "  so  strangely 
mixed  up  with  the  intricate  web  of  British  history," 
and  still  more  in  Paris,  he  marked  '*  the  combined 
idolatry  of  sense  and  intellect "  which  more  than  ever 
attracts  worshippers  from  every  land.  As  ho  went  on 
to  Chalons-sur-Saone,  Melun  recalled  Abelard  to  him. 
The  wealth  of  the  wine  country  through  which  he  was 
slowly  driven  suggested  such  reflections  as  these,  of 
oven  more  significance  to  our  own  time  than  they  were 
forty  years  ago  : — 

"In  these  countries,  mantled  with  vineyards,  one 
cannot  help  learning  the  true  intent  and  use  of  the 
vine  in  the  scheme  of  Providence.  In  our  own  land 
wine  has  become  so  exclusively  a  mere  luxury,  or, 
what  is  worse,  by  a  species  of  manufacture,  an  intoxi- 
cating beverage,  that  many  have  wondered  how  the 
Bible  so  often  speaks  of  wine  in  conjunction  with  corn 
and  other  such  staple  supports  of  animal  life  !  Now, 
in  passing  through  the  vineyards  in  the  east  of  France, 
one  must  at  once  perceive  that  the  vine  greatly 
flourishes  on  slopes  and  heights  where  the  soil  is  too 
poor  and  gravelly  to  maintain  either  corn  for  food  or 
pasturage  for  cattle.  But  what  is  the  providential 
design  in  rendering  this  soil — favoured  by  a  genial 
atmosphere — so  productive  of  the  vine,  if  its  fruit 
become  solely  either  an  article  of  luxury  or  an  instru- 
ment of  vice  ?  The  answer  is,  that  Providence  had  no 
such  design.  Look  at  the  peasant  at  his  meals  in 
vine-bearing  districts  I  Instead  of  milk  he  has  before 
him  a  basin  of  the  pure  unadulterated  '  blood  of  the 
grape.'  In  this,  its  native  and  original  state,  it  is  a 
plain,  simple  and  wholesome  liquid,  which  at  every 
repast  b(  comes  to  the  husbandman  what  milk  is  to 
the  shepherd, — not  a  luxury  but  a  necessary,  not  an 


^t.  33.        WINES   OF   FRANCE.      URNS   OF   ETRURIA.  393 

iiitoxicfitiii!^  but  a  nutritivo  boverago.  Hence,  to  tlio 
vine-dressing  peasant  of  Auxerre,  for  example,  an 
abundant  vintage,  as  connected  with  his  own  ininiedi- 
ate  sustenance,  is  as  important  as  an  overflowing  dairy 
to  the  pastoral  peasant  of  Ayrshire.  And  hence,  by 
such  a  view  cf  the  subject,  are  the  language  and  the 
sense  of  Scripture  vindicated  from  the  very  appearance 
of  favouring  what  is  merely  luxurious  or  positively 
noxious,  when  it  so  constantly  magnifies  a  well- 
replenished  wine-press,  in  a  rocky,  mountainous 
country  like  that  of  Palestine,  as  one  of  the  richest 
bounties  of  a  gracious  Providence — not  to  the  rich 
or  the  mighty  of  the  earth,  but  to  man,  as  man,  with 
his  manifold  physical  wants-  and  infirmities." 

The  sail  from  Chalons  down  the  Saone  took  the 
travellers  i'^  to  the  heart  of  scenery  like  their  own 
Scotland,  but  with  a  climate  more  congenial  to  the 
Anglo-Indian  than  the  gloom  and  the  grey  of  the  cold 
North.  Past  Roman  ruins  and  fairy-like  villas,  Rous- 
seau's valley  of  Rochecardon  and  Lyons  of  martyr 
memories, — where  a  day  of  refreshing  intercourse  was 
spent  with  the  evangelical  pastor,  M.  Cordcs, — they 
were  swept  on  by  the  rapid  Rhone  two  hundred  miles 
in  twelve  hours  to  papal  Avignon ;  thence  Marseilles 
and  its  steamer  were  reached.  On  the  calm  bosom  of 
the  Mediterranean,  the  Presbyterian  and  very  catholic 
missionary  and  the  Roman  Catholic  Dr.  Wiseman  were 
glad  to  renew  their  talk.  The  magnificence  of  Genoa 
— the  first  *  city  of  palaces ' — from  the  sea,  with  the 
setting  sun  bathing  it  in  gold,  gave  place  to  the  gentler 
beauty  of  Leghorn,  framed  as  it  were  in  the  "Western 
Apennines,  and  that  to  the  low  land  and  fever-stricken 
swamps  of  the  neighbourhood  of  Civita  Vecchia.  As 
they  coasted  along  the  ancient  Etruria,  their  talk  was 
of  the  discovery  of  ancient  urns  in  its  hills.  Here 
Dr.  Wiseman  was  a  master,  and  he  courteously  guided 


394  I-IFE   OP  DR.    DUFF.  1839. 

liis  travelling  companion  to  tlio  nearest  eminence 
where  the  treasures  of  ancient  art  had  been  found. 
At  the  then  papal  port  they  parted  never  to  meet 
again,  the  English  priest  to  his  episcopal  consecration 
and  cardinal's  hat  in  due  time,  the  Scottish  missionary 
to  his  turning  upside  down  of  the  idolatrir  of  the  far 
East. 

The  Marseilles  steamer  then  called  at  Malta,  passed 
within  a  hundred  yards  of  the  precipitous  headland 
of  Cape  Matapan,  and  dropped  anchor  at  Syra,  the  port 
of  Europe  which  is  nearest  to  India.  The  filth  and 
the  vice  of  a  Levantine  albeit  Greek  centre  contrasted 
painfully  with  the  glories  of  Homeric  and  even  later 
days.  The  steamer  from  Constantinople  had  Colonel 
Hodges,  the  new  British  Consul-General  for  Egypt,  on 
board,  and  also  the  Rev.  Mr.  Grimshaw,  rector  of 
Bedford,  and  known  in  his  day  as  the  author  of  a  lifo 
of  Cowper  the  poet.  On  reaching  Alexandria  they 
found  that  the  last  act  of  the  departing  Consul- 
General,  Colonel  Campbell,  would  be  to  lay  the  founda- 
tion stone  of  the  first  English  church,  of  St.  Mark, 
which  now  adorns  one  corner  of  the  great  square.  Dr. 
Duff  learned  that  the  ceremony  was  to  be  of  a  purely 
civil  character,  in  this  Muhammadan  city,  with  it? 
memories  of  Panta3nus  and  Clement,  of  Origen  and 
Athanasius,  and  sought  an  explanation  of  the  anomaly. 
Colonel  Campbell  was  a  great  favourite  with  the 
enlightened  Muhammad  Ali,  the  irresponsible  ruler 
of  Egypt.  Being  religiously  disposed,  the  Consul- 
General  had  felt  the  need  of  a  Protestant  place  of 
worship  in  a  city  like  that  of  Alexandria,  which  was 
daily  becoming  a  greater  thoroughfare  between  the 
West  and  East  than  it  had  been  since  the  time  of  its 
founder.  Though  himself  a  Presbyterian,  he  did  not 
want  it  to  be  exclusively  Presbyterian  :  he  knew  that 
members  of  all  Protestant  Churches  would  often  be 


JEt.  33.      MUHAMMAD  ALI  AND  ST.  MAUK*S,  ALEXANDUIA.     395 

passing  through  and  there  bo  often  detained  for  days. 
What  ho  wanted  was  a  Protestant  Church  on  a  purely 
cathoUc  basis,  so  that  ho  might  freely  invite  any  minis- 
ter of  any  Church  to  conduct  divino  service  there.  Ho 
had  repeatedly  therefore  asked  his  friend  the  Pasha 
for  a  piece  of  grou!id,  outside  the  walls  of  Alexandria, 
on  which  such  a  church  might  bo  erected. 

Muhammad  Ali  frankly  declared  that  personally  ho 
had  no  prejudice  on  the  subject,  but  the  religious 
heads  of  Islam  at  Constantinople  would  resist  tlio 
attempt.  At  his  farewell  interview  with  the  Consul- 
Goneral,  however,  he  said,  with  a  smiling  countenance  : 
"  Colonel  Campbell,  you  and  I  have  always  been  fast 
friends.  You  have  often  greatly  helped  mo  with  your 
counsel,  and  in  other  respects  have  done  mo  good 
service.  You  know  that  in  the  East  the  custom  is  for 
a  ruler  to  make  his  friend  a  present  of  a  piece  of  land, 
commonly  called  'jagheer,'  to  be  in  perpetuity  his  own 
property.  I  want  to  give  you  a  small  portion  of  the 
space  occupied  by  the  great  square  in  Alexandria, 
very  near  its  centre.  It  is  my  parting  gift  to  you, 
only  you  must  ask  me  no  question  as  to  what  use 
you  may  make  of  it,  as  that  may  involve  me  in 
official  trouble.  But  I  tell  you  plainly,  you  may  use 
it  for  whatever  purpose  you  think  proper."  Colonel 
Campbell  thoroughly  understood  the  Pasha,  thanked 
him  with  all  his  heart,  and  soon  made  over  the  land 
to  a  committee  of  the  English  residents  as  the  site 
of  the  first  English  church.  Muhammad  Ali  went 
further.  He  could  not  himself  be  present,  but  he 
sent  his  chief  officers  of  state  and  bis  body-guard 
to  honour  his  friend  on  the  occasion  of  laying  the 
foundation  stone.  All  the  consuls,  all  Alexandria, 
were  to  be  present.  How  could  a  religious  service 
be  attempted  in  such  circumstances  ? 

Colonel  Campbell  came  to  see  that,  even  in  Oriental 


39^  I'lI'E    OF   DB.    DUFP.  1839. 

oyos,  tlio  clodication  of  a  sito  for  the  worship  of  God 
Avithout  tlio  recognition  of  tho  proseuco  of  God  would 
be  a  scandal,  or  a  cause  of  suspicion.  Accordingly  on 
the  14th  December,  Ur.  Duff — described  in  tho  Globe 
newspaper  of  the  time  as  "  a  missionary  of  some  cele- 
brity in  India,  who  happened  to  be  present  in  Alexan- 
dria— perfo.  ned  tho  religious  part  of  tho  ceremony, 
in  which  he  was  followed  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Grimshaw." 
Since  that  occasion  Dr.  Yule  has  raised  a  Scottish 
church  near  the  square,  and  M.  do  Lesseps  has  had  his 
canal  cutting  blessed  by  prelates  of  all  the  Eastern 
Churches  side  by  side  with  Muhammadan  Moulvies. 
But  never  before  or  since  has  the  Egypt  of  Fatimito 
caliphs  and  Turkish  pashas  heard  publicly  read  in  its 
greatest  place  Solomon's  dedication  of  the  first  Temple 
and  the  prayers  of  Protestant  ministers  from  West  and 
East.  "  It  was  quite  remarkable  to  note,"  wrote  Dr. 
Duff,  "  the  stillness,  respectfulness,  and  earnestness 
with  which  the  whole  mass  of  surrounding  Mussul- 
mans, only  a  few  of  whom  could  understand  English, 
listened  to  the  prayers,  the  reading,  and  addresses,  and 
then  quietly  dispersed.  Such  was  the  noble  catholicity 
of  the  Protestant  church,  as  projected  and  practically 
established  by  Colonel  Campbell."  In  two  interviews 
with  Muhammad  Ali  thereafter,  Dr.  Duff  pressed  upon 
the  Pasha  the  importance,  for  industrial  as  well  as 
other  reasons,  of  attracting  the  Jews  back  to  Palestine, 
for  the  Pasha  was  at  the  time  master  of  that  part  of 
Syria. 

By  dahabieh  up  the  Mahmoodieh  canal,  excavated 
in  1820  by  cruelly  forced  labour,  and  slowly  up  the 
Hooghly-like  Nile  of  the  Delta,  Cairo  was  reached,  only 
to  find  that  there  were  sixty  passengers  to  fill  the  twelve 
berths  of  the  small  steamer  to  Bombay.  This  gave 
Dr.  Duff  a  whole  month,  in  which  he  not  only  visited 
the   pyramids   of  Geezeh  and  Sakkara,  and  explored 


JEt  33.  MUIIAMMADAN   MISRULE   IN   EGYPT.  397 

Memplua  from  the  ancient  comctory,  of  wliicli  Sir 
G.  Wilkinson's  Arabs  wore  busily  laying  baro  th(3 
mummy  pits,  but  carefully  studied  the  condilion  of 
the  unhappy  fellaheen  of  Egypt,  and  afterwards  went 
to  Mount  Sinai.  Familiar  with  Bengal  and  with  the 
British  financial  and  administrative  systems,  tlio  far- 
seeing  missionary  formed  impressions  regarding  the 
rule  of  Muhammad  Ali  very  different  from  those  which 
were  popular  at  the  time,  but  too  sadly  confirmed 
by  the  subsequent  history  of  Egypt  to  the  present 
hour.  Indeed,  having  many  times  passed  tlirough 
the  land,  from  the  days  of  the  vans  in  the  desert  to 
those  of  the  canal  steamer  and  the  now  railway,  wo 
can  find  no  more  correct  description  of  Egypt  as  it  was 
than  that  of  the  Bengal  missionary  in  1830,  and  no 
more  faithful  account  of  Egypt  as  it  is  than  that  of  the 
Bengal  Lieutenant-Governor,  Sir  George  Campbell. 
The  one  unconsciously  confirms  the  other.  Both 
independently  show  the  hopelessness  of  Mussulman 
rule  under  the  very  best  conditions. 

After  an  eloquent  description  of  Cairo,  full  of  the 
life  and  colour  of  the  confused  oriental  scene  which 
Parisian  taste  has  now  covered  but  not  cleansed,  and 
the  exposure  of  a  great  magician  whose  spiritist  arts 
made  him  the  talk  of  the  East,  Dr.  Duff"  wrote  in  the 
Calcutta  Chrisiian  Observer  of  1840,  that  the  hope 
of  a  revival  of  Egypt  under  the  new  Pasha  was  a 
delusion. 

*'  That  the  Pasha  is  one  of  the  most  extraordinary 
men  of  his  age — a  man  of  uncommon  talent  and 
energy  of  character ;  a  man,  too,  capable  of  being 
courteous  and  affable  in  the  extreme — is  universally 
conceded.  But  that  he  is,  in  any  sense,  the  real  friend 
or  regenerator  of  Egypt,  is  belied  by  every  one  of  his 
actions.  Self,  self,  self,  is  with  him  the  all  in  all. 
Personal  fame,  personal  power,  and  personal  aggrau- 


39^  LIFE    OF   DE,    DUFF.  1840. 

dizoment,  circumscribe  the  entire  horizon  of  his  policy. 
On  the  details  of  his  well-known  history  it  is  needless 
to  dwell.  Born  of  a  humble  parentage  at  Cavallo 
in  Albania,  in  1769,  he  for  some  time  acted  as  an 
assistant  collector  of  taxes,  and  afterwards  as  a  to- 
bacco merchant.  Having  been  twice  admitted  to  his 
immediate  presence,  it  wonderfully  struck  us  that  his 
whole  appearance  still  pointed  very  significantly  to 
the  lowliness  of  his  origin.  Of  middle  stature,  inclined 
to  corpulency  rather  than  corpulent,  he  exhibited  in 
his  countenance  nought  of  real  greatness,  dignity,  or 
command.  Indeed,  the  entire  expression  of  it  was 
decidedly  of  a  sharp,  harsh,  and  vulgar  cast ;  its  chief 
redeeming  quality  being  its  venerable  beard.  But 
those  eyes — were  they  not  striking  ?  Yea,  verily ; 
such  a  pair  of  flashing  eyes  we  never  saw.  it  seemed 
as  if  their  possessor  could  penetrate  through  one's 
bodily  frame,  and  at  a  single  glance  read  the  most 
secret  thouo-hts  and  intents  of  the  heart.  Still  it  was 
not  the  piercing  glance  of  a  profound  intelligence 
which  mainly  lightened  through  these  eyes  :  it  was 
rather  the  vivid  flash  of  a  tiger-like  ferocity.  Hence, 
doubtless,  his  favourite  oath,  when  bent  on  some  deed 
of  more  than  ordinary  horror,  *  By  my  eyes  ! '  When 
he  spoke,  his  voice  had  a  peculiar  shrillness  which 
made  one  feel  uneasy ;  and  when  he  smiled,  his  very 
smile  had  somewhat  in  it  of  a  savage  grin." 

Dr.  Duff  showed  in  detail,  in  agriculture,  in  manu- 
factures, in  public  works,  in  commerce,  in  military 
discipline,  and  in  the  aggravated  horrors  of  the  slave- 
trade,  that  all  the  changes  amounted  to  neither  a 
reform  nor  a  regeneration,  but  to  the  oriental  art  of 
squeezing  the  peasantry  that  the  ruler  might  have 
a  full  treasury  and  a  ruthless  army.  The  solitary 
printing-press  and  polytechnic  school  were  "  in  point 
of  fact,  as  much  the  mere  instrument  of  an  all-absorb- 


^t.  34.  DEGENEEACY   OP  THE   COPTIC   CHURCH.  399 

ing  despotism  as  the  drill  ground,  the  cannon  foundry 
or  the  powder  mill."  Then,  as  all  through  the 
debasing  history  of  his  house,  while  it  is  true  that 
Muhammad  Ali  and  his  successors  have  been  capable 
of  occasional  acts  of  generosity,  the  remark  of  their 
J'rench  panegyrist  sums  up  the  truth  : — "  The  traveller 
sees  with  astonishment  the  richness  of  the  harvests 
contrasted  with  the  wretched  state  of  the  villages.  If 
there  is  no  country  more  abundant  in  its  territorial 
productions,  there  is  none,  perhaps,  whose  inhabitants 
on  the  whole  are  more  miserable."  Forty  years  of 
that  misery  have  slowly  passed,  handing  it  on  in  an 
intensified  form  to  a  new  generation,  from  whom 
Christian  bond-holders  still  demand  the  pound  of  flesh, 
while  the  Western  Powers  are  foiled  in  the  attempt  to 
keep  the  fellaheen  quiet,  only,  let  us  hope,  to  hasten 
the  day  of  their  deliverance. 

Dr.  Duff  could  not  be  in  Egypt  without  studying 
the  most  degraded  of  all  Christian  churches  except  its 
Abyssinian  offshoot,  the  Coptic.  Yery  tender  is  the 
sympathy,  very  eager  the  hope,  which  he  expresses  in 
its  case.  Then  the  only  missionaries  in  all  Egypt  were 
Messrs.  Lieder  and  Kruse,  the  former  and  his  wife  long 
the  benefactors  of  its  people,  and  the  friends  of  all 
Christian  travellers  who  sought  them  out.  Now 
American  Presbyterians  like  Dr.  Lansing,  as  well  as 
others,  have  done  in  Cairo,  and  from  Eamleh  to  the 
equator,  the  same  work  among  Copts  and  Arabs  that 
Dr.  Duff  had  been  doing  among  Hindoos  and  Muham- 
madans.  "  Roused  by  recollections  of  faded  glory,  we 
felt  moved  with  a  burning  desire  to  know  how  life 
could  be  rebreathed  into  the  shrivelled  skeleton  of  so 
fruitful  and  so  noble  a  mother  of  churches,"  wrote 
Dr.  Duff.  The  Patriarch,  professing  to  be  the 
apostolic  successor  of  St.  Mark,  had  been  conveyed 
from  his  convent  to  the  chair  of  the  Evangelist  by 


400  LIFE   OP  BR.    DUFP.  1840. 

the  soldiery  of  the  Pasha  for  consecration  !  Dr.  Duff 
sought  an  interview  with  him,  that  he  might  urge 
the  gradual  establishment  of  a  college  like  that  in 
Calcutta — a  scheme  since  most  successfully  carried 
out  by  the  Americans.  He  and  Mr.  Grimshaw  were 
conducted  to  the  audience  chamber  by  the  Bishop  of 
Jerusalem. 

"  There  the  Patriarch, a  dark-complexioned,  venerable 
old  man  clad  in  his  pontificals,  was  seated  in  oriental 
style  to  receive  us.  Having  explained  the  anti-popish 
character  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Churches  of  England 
and  of  Scotland  as  well  as  of  other  Protestant  denomi- 
nations, and  having  raferred  at  some  length  to  the 
original  prosperity  and  subsequent  decline  and  per- 
secution of  the  Church  of  Egypt,  we  expressed  our 
deep  regret  at  the  obscuration  of  their  light,  our 
sympathy  for  their  past  and  present  sufferings,  and 
our  earnest  concern  for  their  restoration  to  more  than 
primitive  excellence.  The  Patriarch  admitted  that 
many  grievous  errors  had  formerly  crept  in ;  that 
much  deadness  still  continued  to  benumb,  and  much 
darkness  to  overshadow  them ;  and  that  there  was 
need  for  the  infusion  of  new  life  and  new  light. 
When,  in  making  this  admission,  he  pointedly  referred 
to  the  sufferings  of  their  martyred  fathers,  he  seemed 
greatly  moved,  and  melted  into  tears.  What  then  was 
to  be  done  towards  a  revival  and  a  re-illumination  ? 
Might  not,  it  was  asked,  might  not  the  Bible  be  freely 
circulated,  not  in  the  Coptic,  which  was  a  dead  lan- 
guage studied  by  few,  but  in  the  Arabic,  which,  read 
by  numbers,  was  understood  and  spoken  by  all  t^ 
Without  qualification  or  reserve  the  Patriarch  de- 
clared that  it  might;  adding,  with  emphasis,  that 
wha'  ver  else  might  be  alleged  against  his  Church, 
this  at  least  had  never  ceased  to  be  one  of  its  distin- 
uishing  characteristics,  viz.,  that  the  Bible  should  bo 


^t.  34.    HIS  SCHEME  FOE  REVIVING  THE  COPTIC  CnURCTI.    4OI 

held  as  the  ultimate  standard  of  appeal  in  articles  of 
faith  ;  and  that  to  it,  through  any  intelligible  medium, 
the  laity  and  the  priest  should,  all  alike,  have  the 
right  of  unrestricted  access.  Again,  it  was  asked 
whether,  in  order  to  aid*  in  reviving  and  diffusing 
a  knowledge  of  Christian  doctrine,  tracts  or  small 
books  in  the  form  of  extracts  or  selections  from  the 
most  celebrated  fathers  of  the  Alexandrian  school, 
who  are  still  regarded  -u^th  profoundest  veneration 
by  the  Copts  themselves,  might  not  be  compiled,  trans- 
lated, and  distributed  among  the  people,  or  introduced 
into  seminaries  of  education  ?  Without  hesitation  the 
Patriarch — smiling  with  t;vident  delight  at  our  respect- 
ful recognition  of  names  which  have  reflected  honour 
on  the  Christian  Church — replied,  that  there  could  bo 
no  possible  objection  to  such  a  measure,  yea,  that  he 
would  consider  such  tracts  and  books  an  invaluable 
boon.  The  subject  of  raising  or  rather  new-creating 
a  standard  of  instruction  for  the  clergy  next  occupied 
the  main  part  of  conversation.  Not  to  arouse  the 
fears  and  suspicions  of  an  ignorance  so  profound,  not 
to  tear  up  by  the  roots  a  plant  so  sapless  and  feeble 
by  sudden  stretches  of  innovation,  it  was  asked  in 
the  first  instance,  whether  a  seminary  might  not  be 
established  in  which  candidates  for  the  ministry 
could  pass  through  a  systematic  course  of  theological 
tuition,  making  the  Bible  itself  the  great  text-book, 
and  selections  from  the  most  venerated  of  the  fathers 
important  auxiliaries,  superadding,  with  a  view  to  the 
expansion  of  the  miud  by  an  enlargement  of  the  range 
of  ideas,  a  course  of  instruction  in  geography  and 
general  history,  ancient  and  modern,  placing  the 
whole  system  under  the  patronage  and  supervision 
of  a  committee  composed  of  the  Patriarch  himself  and 
other  leading  members  of"  the  Coptic  community,  to- 
gether with  the  English  missionaries,  and  entrusting 

D    D 


402  LIFE   OP   DR.   DUFF.  1840. 

the  latter  with  the  entire  practical  and  professorial 
duties  of  the  proposed  institution  ?  After  much  initial 
explanation,  the  Patriarch  eventually  signified  his  own 
acquiescence  in  some  such  scheme.  He  accordingly 
announced  his  consent  and  sanction  that  Mr.  Lieder 
should  forthwith  prepare  in  writing  a  well  digested 
syllabus  of  the  projected  plan,  to  be  submitted  form- 
ally to  himself  and  his  council  of  bishops  .and  presby- 
ters for  their  united  approval  and  ratification;  and 
that,  when  approved  of  and  ratified,  an  authenticated 
copy  thereof,  signed  by  the  Patriarch  and  sealed  with 
the  patriarchal  signet,  should  be  furnished  to  the 
missionaries,  to  be  by  them  forwarded  for  the  satis- 
faction of  the  British  Churches,  with  a  view  to  secure 
and  guarantee  their  countenance  and  support.  After 
replying  to  many  other  questions  relative  to  the 
present  doctrines,  discipline  and  ceremonial  of  his 
Church ;  and  after  thanking  us  for  the  i^.terest  which 
had  been  manifested  in  its  re-invigoration  and  pros- 
perity, the  Patriarch  rose  up  and  solemnly  pronounced 
his  benediction,  subjoining,  with  tearful  eyes  and 
quivering  lips  which  betrayed  deep  emotion,  the  simple 
but  devout  aspiration :  '  If  Tie  should  never  meet 
again  in  time,  my  prayer  is,  tharfc  we  may  meet  in 
heaven,  before  the  throne  of  our  common  Lord  and 
Saviour.' " 

For  the  expedition  from  Cairo  to  the  peninsula  of 
Sinai  a  party  of  five  English  gentlemen  offered  to  join 
Dr.  Duff.  At  Alexandria  he  had  engaged  an  assistant 
at  the  British  Consulate,  who  was  master  of  the  popular 
Arabic.  The  sheikh  of  the  tribes  of  the  Sinai  range, 
happening  to  be  in  Cairo,  was  secured  as  guide  of 
the  caravan,  Mr.  Lieder  making  the  necessary  con- 
tract. Each  of  the  six  travellers  had  three  camels, 
for  himself,  for  the  tent  and  for  the  provisions. 
One  was  a  Madras  civilian,  whoso  ideas  of  comfort  in 


JEt.  34.  AN   OLD    INDIAN   IN  THE   DESERT.  403 

the  desert  proved  to  be  those  of  the  most  luxurious 
nawab  that  Theodore  Hook  or  Thackeray  ever  satir- 
ised. The  route  was  the  most  southerly,  from  old 
Memphis  to  Jebel  Attaka,  believed  by  the  scholars  of 
that  day  to  have  been  the  line  of  the  Exodus,  just  as 
the  latest  scholar,  Brugsch  Bey,*  would  now  scud  tlic 
Israelites  north  through  the  Sorbonian  bog.  Before 
sunrise  on  the  morning  after  the  first  encampment  in 
the  desert,  when  all  were  up  for  a  frugal  breukftist 
and  early  start,  the  nawab  was  heard  shouting  for 
his  gridiron,  and  then  for  chops.  He  was  pacified 
with  difficulty,  but  only  to  call  an  early  halt  for 
*  tiffin,'  or  luncheon,  in  the  blazing  sun.  Next  day  a 
sandstorm  threatened  to  engulf  the  whole  party,  and 
tho  unhappy  gourmand  demanded  to  bo  led  back  to 
the  joys  of  the  Waghorn  hotel  in  Cairo.  He  was  forced 
to  proceed,  but  his  troubles  were  not  yet  at  an  end. 
On  the  following  morning,  after  the  misery  of  the 
sand,  he  called  for  water.  Dr.  Duff's  description  of 
the  scene  used  to  be  most  amusing.  "  For  what 
purpose?"  "Why,"  said  the  nawab,  "  to  have  a  bath, 
for  this  state  of  things  is  simply  intolerable."  His 
associates  tried  to  persuade  him  that  it  was  vain  to 
expect  water  for  such  a  purpose.  Then  it  was  that  lie 
coolly  asked  for  one  or  more  of  the  hogskins  in  which 
water  for  culinary  purposes  was  carried,  though,  as 
the  skins  had  not  been  sufficiently  tanned,  the  water 
by  that  time  had  got  the  colour  of  London  porter ! 
Yet  being  the  only  water  available  for  necessary  uses, 
no  part  of  it  could  be  given  up  for  the  luxury  of  a 
bath.  The  civilian  was  still  unsatisfied,  and  could  not 
be  quieted.  At  last  it  occurred  to  some  one  to  call 
the  sheikh.     The  look  of  the  Arab  was  one  of  perfect 

*  A  nistorii  of  Ugijpt  iinder  ihe  riiamohs  derived  entirehj  from  the 
Monuments.     By  Houry  Eru^^'sch  Bey.     1879. 


404  LIFE   OP  DE.   DUFF,  1840. 

astonislimcnt.  He  eyed  the  Sybarite  from  head  to 
foot  as  if  his  eyes  would  penetrate  his  very  body.  At 
last  when  the  explanation  was  fully  given,  the  sheikh, 
instead  of  a  formal  reply,  looked  somewhat  con- 
temptuously at  the  gentleman,  put  both  his  hands 
down  into  the  deep  sand,  took  up  a  handful,  rubbed 
liis  fingers  with  it,  and  looking  steadfastly  at  the 
Englishman,  said  with  great  emphasis  :  "  That,  sir, 
is  the  water  of  the  desert ! "  The  result  was  that, 
from  Suez,  Dr.  Duff  alone  went  on  to  Sinai,  while  his 
companions  returned  to  Cairo,  not  however  without 
having  exacted  from  the  sheikh  a  new  pledge,  drawn 
up  by  the  English  vice-consul  then  just  established  at 
Suez,  to  bring  back  in  safety  the  foolhardy  missionary  I 
The  silence  of  the  desert  of  Sinai  for  the  next  fort- 
night proved  a  time  of  refreshing  to  the  spirit  of  the 
solitary  traveller,  as  he  passed  from  the  toils  of  the 
West  to  the  labours  about  to  be  renewed  in  India. 
Bible  in  hand,  he  rode  day  by  day  along  the  track  of 
the  children  of  Israel,  as  they  had  marched,  noting 
the  wells,  the  palm-trees,  the  acacias,  the  camel  tracks, 
and  the  desert  landscape.  As  he  left  the  Red  Sea  for 
the  great  plain  at  the  foot  of  the  Mount  of  the  Law, 
he  followed  the  eastern  central  route  and  returned  by 
the  south-western,  that  he  might  cover  as  much  ground 
as  possible.  It  was  evening  when  he  came  to  the 
outer  border  of  the  great  platform  of  the  wilderness  of 
sandy  rock.  The  rays  of  the  setting  sun  fell  slantingly 
on  the  stupendous  masses  of  grey  granite  which  form 
the  Sinai  range,  as  it  stretches  for  forty  or  fifty  miles 
along  the  sea  and  rises  to  a  height  of  between  8,000  and 
9,000  feet.  To  his  imagination  the  sight  was  that  of 
a  mighty  fortress  on  fire,  of  blazing  battlements  and 
flashing  towers.  On  the  morrow  at  sunrise,  while  the 
ground  was  still  bound  by  frost,  the  disintegrated 
granite  seemed  a  mass  of  orient  pearl  and  gold,  and 


JEt.  34.  APrROACniNG   THE   MOUNT   OP   MOSES.  405 

the  plain  looked  as  if  strewed  with  the  manna  from 
heaven,  which  melted  away  as  the  sun  rose  in  the 
sky.  Since  that  time  many  a  scientific  explorer 
and,  finally,  the  Ordnance  Survey  have  revealed  the 
physical  appearances  of  the  wilderness  of  the  wander- 
ings, only  to  leave  the  question  of  the  actual  peak 
from  which  God  talked  with  Moses  as  unsettled  as 
ever.  Dr.  Duff's  experiences,  as  often  told  to  his 
children  and  grandchildren  down  to  his  last  years, 
have  an  interest  of  their  own. 

The  broad  valley  running  along  the  north  side, 
opposite  the  eastern  portion  of  the  Sinai  range,  is  the 
Wady  es-Sheikh.  The  wady  runs  eastward  for  some 
distance,  then  turning  to  the  south  it  enters  the  centre 
of  the  great  range,  and  proceeds  westward  to  the 
foot  of  Jebel  Musa,  the  traditional  Mount  Sinai.* 
This  undoubtedly.  Dr.  Duff  used  to  say,  is  the  route 
that  would  be  pursued  by  any  great  caravan  or  large 
company  of  travellers,  and  more  particularly  by  such 
a  host  as  that  of  Israel.  From  the  central  point  in 
the  Wady  es-Sheikh  there  is  a  pass  which  rises  on  the 
rio-lit  to  a  considerable  elevation,  and  runs  strai«cht 
to  Jebel  Musa.  Following  this.  Dr.  Duff  was  struck 
by  the  appearance  of  the  precipitous  mountains  on 
both  sides.  It  really  looked  as  if  the  mount  some 
time  or  other  had  been  cleft  asunder.  As  he  as- 
cended, the  mountain  air  became  exhilarating  in  a 
way  scarcely  to  be  conceived.  When  the  summit  of 
the  pass  was  reached,  a  lofty,  perpendicular  conical- 
looking  mountain  suddenly  rose  up  some  miles  in 
front.  Immediately  the  whole  of  the  Arabs  dis- 
mounted  and   began   to   shout   out,    "  Jebel   Musa," 

*  Dean  Stanley's  map  of  the  traditional  Sinai,  in  his  Sinai  and 
Palestine  (1860),  best  illustrates  Dr.  Duff's  experience  in  1840,  and 
Dr.  Wilson's  in  1843. 


406  LIFE   OP   DR.    rUFP.  1840. 

"  Jebel  Musa,"  "  Jebol  Musa,"  showing  the  veneration 
they  had  for  the  mountain.  Then  the  traveller  entered 
on  a  very  remarkable  gently  sloping  plain,  the  slope 
beinc:  downwards  to  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  but  the 
surface  as  smooth  as  if  it  had  been  artificially  pre- 
pared. Hero  was  a  plain  quite  capable  of  holding  the 
entire  encampment  of  the  Israelites,  for  it  should 
never  be  forgotten  that  their  ordinary  tentage  must 
have  occupied  very  little  space,  somewhat  like  that  of 
the  Arabs  now.  This  plain  seemed  a  gigantic  nest  in 
the  centre  of  the  mountains,  for  all  round  on  every 
side  it  was  bordered  by  craggy  precipices.  The  soli- 
tude was  profound,  reminding  him  of  the  perfect 
stillness  of  a  well-kept  Scottish  Sabbath.  Proceed- 
ing onwards  he  reached  the  base  of  a  high  peak. 
Here  the  first  thing  which  astonished  him  was  the 
literal  truth  of  the  Scripture  passage  which  speaks  of 
the  mountain  that  might  be  touched,  and,  when  the 
law  was  given  with  such  awful  solemnity  from  its 
summit,  declares  how  means  were  used  to  prevent  the 
people  from  touching  it.  As  a  native  of  the  Gram- 
pians, he  had  been  wont  from  infancy  to  gaze  at  and 
climb  mountains.  Then  when  he  read  this  in  the 
Bible  about  Mount  Sinai,  he  wondered  what  it  meant; 
for  if  any  one  had  told  him,  as  a  youth,  of  any 
Scottish  or  Grampian  mountain  that  it  might  be 
touched,  or  that  means  might  be  taken  to  prevent  its 
being  touched,  he  would  at  once  have  inquired — for 
instance  of  Schehallion,  Ben  Lawers,  or  Ben-y-gloe — 
"Where  is  the  beofinninor  of  the  mountain?"  Now 
when  he  saw  Mount  Sinai  itself,  the  literal  truth  of 
the  whole  description  flashed  upon  him. 

A  mile  or  two  up  the  wady,  on  the  east  side  of  the 
mountain,  is  the  celebrated  convent,  Justinian's  St. 
Catharine.  He  had  left  Suez  on  Monday  morning, 
and   it  was  Saturday  forenoon  when  he  reached  the 


JEt.  34.  IN  ST.  Catharine's  convent.  407 

convent.  The  stately  building  is  an  irregular  fortress, 
with  apparently  no  entrance)  into  it.  For  the  sake 
of  protection  from  the  Arabs  it  is  surrounded  by  a 
massive  wall,  forty  feet  high.  In  the  centre  of  the 
eastern  wall  was  a  cupola,  with  a  windlass  inside  ;  the 
ordinary  rule  was,  when  strangers  appeared  there,  to 
let  down  a  bag  to  receive  any  communication  from 
parties  known  to  the  superior,  who  might  accredit 
their  character  and  position.  When  Dr.  Duff  loft 
Cairo  there  were  six  who  intended  to  visit  the  convent, 
and  they  got  from  the  Greek  Patriarch  the  requisite 
order.  But  here  was  only  one  traveller.  The  superior 
demanded  an  explanation  from  the  sheikh.  On  that 
Dr.  Duff  was  hoisted  up  into  the  convent,  and  was 
fairly  installed  as  a  guest  ix.-  all  that  is  left  of  what 
was  once  the  great  episcopal  city  of  Paran,  and  a 
mountain  of  Greek  hermitages  to  which  pilgrims 
flocked  from  all  parts  of  the  Christian  East. 

How  to  communicate  intelligibly  with  the  superior 
and  the  monks  was  the  India^^  missionary's  first  diffi- 
culty. They  were  ignorant  of  Latin,  but  their  first 
evening  service,  followed  by  a  reading  of  the  Gospels, 
suggested  to  Dr.  Duff  that  he  should  try  Greek. 
After  he  had  been  taken  round  the  traditional  sights 
of  the  convent,  including  the  legendary  site  of  the 
burning  bush,  he  visited  the  superior,  who  was 
walking  on  the  terrace.  Having  heard  of  the  convent 
garden,  every  inch  of  the  soil  of  which  had  been  carried 
from  Egypt  on  camel-back.  Dr.  Du^  said  to  him,  "  You 
have  a  garden,"  using  the  word  paradelsos.  To  him, 
examinin;^^  the  little  spot,  the  superior  said,  *'  You  are 
going  to  India,"  as  the  Patriarch's  certificate  stated. 
"Yes,"  said  Dr.  Duff,  "I  am  returning  to  it."  "Do 
you  speak  the  Indian  language,  then ? "  "In  India," 
Dr.  Duff  replied,  "  there  are  many  languages."  On 
this   the   superior  sent  for   a   monk   who   had  spent 


408  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF,  1840. 

several  years  in  India,  and  the  man  came  into  his 
presence  exclaiming,  "Bahout,  bahout  salaam,  Sahel)." 
The  familiar  Hiudostanee  thenceforth  became  his 
medium  of  communication.  The  old  monk  was  a 
Kussian  by  birth.  As  a  pedlar  ho  had  worked  his 
way  through  the  great  Khanates  of  Central  Asia  and 
Afghanistan  to  the  Punjab,  and  thence  had  gone  as 
far  as  Calcutta,  where  he  had  resided  for  some  time. 
Such  wanderings  are  still  not  unusual  on  the  part  of 
semi-Eastern  races  at  a  low  stage  of  civilization  like 
the  Russians,  and  of  our  own  hardy  Muhammadan 
and  Sikh  merchants.  Sikhs  and  Hindoos  of  Western 
India  have  been  settled  in  St.  Petersburg ;  there  are 
traces  of  them  in  the  marts  along  the  Danube,  and  we 
have  met  them  in  recent  years  at  the  Nijni  Novgorod 
fair  on  the  Volga.  Not  long  ago  the  Government  of 
India  was  sorely  puzzled  to  find  heirs  in  the  Punjab 
for  the  enormous  fortune  left  by  a  villager  who  had 
thus  found  his  way  to  wealth  in  the  Nevski  Prospekt. 
Having  set  his  heart  on  climbing  to  the  top  of  the 
Mount  of  Moses  before  the  sun  rose  on  the  coming 
Sabbath,  Dr.  Dufi'  persuaded  his  new  friend,  in  spite 
of  all  dissuasions,  to  call  him  in  time  and  give  him 
a  younger  guide  with  food  that  he  might  there  spend 
the  day  of  rest  and  worship.  Excited  by  the  prospect 
he  could  not  sleep,  any  more  than  Tischendorf  when, 
four  years  after  this,  that  scholar  spent  Whitsun  morn 
on  the  peak  of  Jebel  Musa,  during  the  memorable 
visit  when  his  casual  discovery  of  forty-three  leaves 
of  the  Septuagiut  among  the  waste  paper  intended 
for  the  oven  of  the  convent,  led  to  his  discovery  of 
the  only  complete  Uncial  MS.  of  the  Bible.  Descend- 
ing from  St.  Catharine,  which  the  Ordnance  Survey 
places  at  an  elevation  of  5,020  feet,  while  Jebel  Musa 
rises  to  7,359,  the  impetuous  missionary  mounted  up- 
wards with  a   speed  that  alarmed   his   guide.      The 


^t.  34.  ON   THE   TOP   OF   MOUNT    SINAI.  409 

summit  was  readied  just  before  the  sun's  first  rays 
heralded  his  approach,  always  rapid  in  the  south,  and 
the  sky  was  clear  without  a  cloud.  Dr.  Duff's  heart 
was  filled  with  gratitude  to  God  for  the  favour  with 
which  He  had  thus  visited  liini.  While  the  monk 
vainly  displayed  the  contents  of  his  wallet,  the  travel- 
ler was  gazing  at  the  first  red  ray  of  light  which  shot 
and  then  streamed  over  the  whole  range,  turning  its 
peaks  for  the  moment  into  a  succession  of  glowing 
furnaces.  Then  rose  the  glorious  luminary  of  day  in 
all  the  fulness  of  its  majesty,  calling  out  from  the  dark 
waste  of  mountains  the  infinite  variety  of  tints  and 
colours.  There  he  penned  this  letter  to  his  daughter, 
one  of  twelve  which  he  wrote  to  dear  friends  in 
Scotland  from  the  same  spot : — 

"  Top  of  Mount  Sinai, 
**  Sabbath  Morning,  12th  January ^  1840. 

"  My    Dearest    R ; — Did  you   ever   expect   ^o 

get  a  letter  from  papa  dated  'Mount  Sinai'  ? — a  letter 
written  on  the  very  top  of  that  extraordinary  moun- 
tain on  which  Jehovah  once  came  down,  amid  thun- 
derings  and  lightnings,  so  that  the  thousands  of 
Israel  were  affrighted,  and  Moses  himself  exceedingly 
quaked  !  And  yet  so  it  is.  Here  I  am  on  a  Sabbath 
morning,  on  the  12th  January,  about  sunrise — when 
perhaps  you  and  your  sister  and  brothers  are  scarcely 
out  of  bed.  And  amid  all  the  wonders  of  that  most 
indescribable  scene  around  me  I  have  not  forgotten 
my  dear  children,  or  the  guardian  friends  that  surround 
them.  Yes,  this  very  moment  I  have  finished  reading 
aloud  the  19th  and  20th  chapters  of  Exodus, — but  oh 
in  what  a  different  voice  from  that  in  which  they  were 
uttered  upwards  of  three  thousand  years  ago ;  and 
have  just  now  risen  from  the  naked  granite  peak,  on 
which  I  knelt  to  implore  the  Lord  for  a  blessing — to 


4IO  LIFE   OP   DR.   DUFF.  1840. 

pray  that  the  law  might  be  my  schoolmaster  to 
bring  me  to  Christ;  and  iu  my  prayer,  rest  assured 
that  you  and  sister,  brothers  a.i''  otlicr  friends,  wore 
not  forgotten.  No ;  the  remeinhnince  of  you  all  has 
been  sweet  to  me.  May  the  Lord  lead  and  guide  you, 
in  grace  and  in  truth,  to  know  and  to  do  His  holy 
Willi 

"  I  left  Cairo  in  company  with  some  gentlemen  for 
Sinai.  Wo  followed  the  route  of  the  children  of  Israel 
as  recorded  in  Exodus,  through  Succoth,  Etham, 
Pihahiroth  to  the  Red  Sea — to  the  memorable  spot 
where  Jehovah  divided  the  waters  of  the  great  deep 
to  afford  a  safe  passage  to  His  chosen  people.  We 
could  not  cross  on  dru  ground^  so  we  travelled  north- 
ward to  Suez,  where  my  companions,  from  fatigue  or 
faint-heartedness  in  traversing  the  desert,  resolved  to 
proceed  no  farther.  So,  in  the  society  of  an  Arab 
sheikh,  or  chief  of  a  tribe,  and  a  few  Arabs,  with 
camels,  etc.,  I  advanced  alone  along  the  eastern  border 
of  the  Red  Sea  into  the  'great  and  terrible  wilderness;* 
passed  the  bitter  fountain  of  Marah — whose  waters  I 
tasted  and  found  as  bitter  and  undrinkable  as  ever ; 
passed  Elim,  where  there  are  still  wells  and  palm- 
trees;  came  to  the  spot  where  the  Israelites  next 
encamped  by  the  sea  shore,  and  so  on  to  the  base  and 
top  of  Sinai,  where  I  now  am. 

"  But  you  may  say,  *  What,  papa,  climb  a  mountain 
on  Sabbath  ! '  Yes,  my  dear ;  think  for  a  moment.  In 
Edinburgh,  where  there  is  a  church,  it  would  be  wrong 
not  to  go  there  to  worship  with  the  rest  of  God's 
people.  But  hero  there  is  no  church — no  church 
within  hundreds  of  miles,  in  which  I  could  worship. 
Now  you  know  that  God  is  '  ^ot  confined  to  temples 
made  with  hands.'  He  is  a  Spirit,  and  is  to  be  wor- 
shipped in  spirit  and  in  truth.  He  is  everywhere  to 
be  found,  and  may  everywhere  be  worshipped.     Our 


A^A.  34.  SiNAI  AND   CALVARY.  4  I  I 

Saviour  often  wont  apart  to  a  mountain  to  pray ;  so 
this  morning  I  retired  to  the  summit  of  Sinui  to  hjld 
communion  with  my  God,  and  to  renicnibor  in  prayer 
those  that  are  dear  to  me.  I  never  hi\d  such  a  chureli 
before;  for  this  is  the  chureli  where  Jt^hovah  Himself 
proclaimed  the  law  to  the  thousands  of  Israel.  And 
the  very  rocks  now  surround  me  that  quaked  and 
shook  at  that  mighty  voice.  Oh  may  wo  all  find 
refuge  from  the  thunders  of  Sinai  beneath  the  shadow 
of  the  Cross  of  Calvary  1 

"  This  is  a  solemn  spot  1  This  is  a  solemn  day  ! 
And  never  in  my  life  did  I  before  read  the  fourth 
commandment  with  such  peculiar  emotion !  '  Re- 
member the  Sabbath-day  to  keep  it  holy.'  I  hope,  my 
dear  children,  that  you  strive  to  obey  this  and  other 
commands  of  the  Lord.  Attend  submissively  to  the 
instructions  of  those  who  are  over  you;  pray  that 
God  Himself,  by  His  Spirit,  may  make  you  more  able 
to  obey.     .     .     Your  affectionate  papa, 

*'  Alexandeu  Duff." 

Several  times  during  that  memorable  day  did  Dr. 
Duff  read  aloud,  amid  the  awful  silence  of  the  mount, 
the  Ten  Commandments.  To  him  the  desolation  and 
the  barrenness  around  marked  the  blighting  influences 
of  sin,  the  hopeless  state  of  man  under  the  law  which 
condemns.  In  desire  he  turned  to  the  mount  in  Jeru- 
salem where  the  great  Sacrifice  for  sin  was  offered, 
and  heaven  was  opened  for  the  Pentecostal  effusion 
which  is  yet  to  bless  the  whole  earth.  "  The  law  was 
given  by  Moses,  but  grace  and  truth  came  by  Jesus 
Christ,"  the  words  he  had  first  joined  the  monks  of  St. 
Catharine  in  reading,  rang  in  his  ears  as  his  guide  took 
him  to  the  legendary  spots  where  since  Justinian's 
days  it  had  been  taught  that  Jehovah  passed  by  re- 
vealing the  skirts  of  His  glory,  while  farther  on  the 


412  LIFE   OP   DB.   DUFP.  1840. 

Arabs  show  tlio  footprint  of  Muhammad's  dromedary 
on  the  ni<^lit-journoy  from  Mecca  to  Jerusalem.  Like 
every  traveller  before  and  since,  down  to  the  purely 
scientific  members  of  the  Ordnance  Survey,  Dr.  Dulf 
returned  from  his  fortnight's  study  of  the  natural 
features  of  the  peninsula  of  Sinai  strengthened  in  his 
conviction  of  the  truth  of  Holy  Scripture.  Ho  was 
invigorated  by  the  air  of  the  desert  at  that  season. 
His  only  mishap  was  his  being  thrown  from  a  camel 
and  stunned  for  a  time. 

The  little  Bombay  steamer  arrived  at  Suez  the 
morning  after  his  return,  with  the  news,  then  as  now 
eagerly  looked  for,  of  the  progress  of  an  evil  policy  in 
Afghjinistan.  Sir  Jolm  Keano  had  marched  up  the 
Bolan  Pass  to  the  capture  of  Kandahar  and  Ghuznee, 
where  the  young  lieutenant  of  Engineers  who  had 
forced  the  gate  was  his  old  companion,  Durand.  But 
till  he  learned  this  Dr.  Duff  had  doubted  whether  there 
might  be  a  British  India  to  go  to,  30  fatal  did  the 
policy  which  sacrificed  Dost  Muhammad  seem  to  all, 
save  to  the  council  of  Lord  Auckland,  and  the  Cabinet 
in  which  Lord  Palmerston  was  the  foreign  secretary 
and  Sir  J.  C.  Uobhouse  president  of  the  Board  of 
Control.  But  there  was  a  practical  question  of  more 
importance  for  the  moment — how  to  secure  a  passage. 
Dr.  Duff  happened  to  be  the  first  to  meet  the  purser, 
who  advised  him  to  go  to  the  office  at  once  and  pay 
his  money.  This  the  missionary  refused  to  do  because 
the  day  was  the  Sabbath.  Had  not  the  purser  re- 
spected his  conscientiousness,  and  himself  secretly 
become  responsible  for  the  passage-money,  Dr.  and 
Mrs.  Duff  would  have  been  left  in  Egypt  for  another 
month.  "  I  have  secured  for  you  the  best  cabin,"  said 
the  pursei  "  next  to  that  occupied  by  the  Commander- 
in-Chief." 

When  early  in  February,   1840;   the  Suez  steamer 


iEt.  34.  "^I'i'^1    ^"'    WILSON   IN    nOMRAY.  413 

entered  the  harbour  of  Bombay,  Dr.  Wilson  was  wait- 
ing to  receive  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Duff,  wliom  lie  at  once 
installed  in  what  was  then  the  centre  of  all  his 
op(>rations,  the  mission-house  of  Amhi-olie.  The  two 
missionaries  to  Western  and  liastern  India,  from  the 
Scottish  border  and  the  Grampian  hif^hlands,  from 
tlie  Universities  of  Edinburi^h  and  St.  Andrews  respec- 
tively, met  for  the  first  tijne.  Uol)ert  Nesbit,  too,  was 
there,  and  Dr.  Murray  Mitcliell  who  had  not  long  l)e- 
fore  arrived  from  Abei'deen.  All  were  still  young  men  : 
Wilson  was  just  thirty-six,  and  Duff  was  nearly  thirty- 
four  years  of  age.  Their  experience  of  India  had  not 
been  the  same,  for  they  had  been  separated  by  distance, 
by  race,  by  language,  and  even  by  social  differences 
more  widely  than  Fi'ance  from  Russia.  Like  a  bracing 
wind  from  the  north.  Dr.  Duff  brought  with  him  all  the 
news  of  national  and  ecclesiastical  affairs  in  Scotland, 
— of  the  widening  gap  in  the  Kirk,  of  the  work  of 
Chalmers  and  the  toil  of  Welsh,  of  the  devotion  of 
Gordon  and,  on  the  other  side,  of  the  kindly  zeal  of 
Brunton  ;  of  the  coming  men  like  Guthrie  and  Candlish, 
some  of  whom  he  had  vainly  summoned  to  higher 
work  in  the  East;  of  the  missionary  spirit  of  presby- 
teries and  congregations  all  over  Scotland,  soon  to  bo 
checked  for  a  time  by  internal  disruption,  but  only 
to  burst  forth  in  home  and  colonial  and  educational 
movements  as  well  as  foreign  missions,  along  the 
lines  first  marked  out,  as  Dr.  (Jhalmers  had  said,  by 
Duft'  himself.  Nor  was  the  talk  oidy  of  Scotland,  for 
the  Calcutta  missionary  had  visited  Bombay  to  consult 
about  that  now  mission  from  the  Prosbyterian  Church 
of  Ireland  to  which  he  had  given  a  mighty  impetus 
after  Wilson  had  invited  it  to  the  Krisliua-desolated 
lands  of  Kathiawar. 

Dr.  Duff  embodied  his  month's  experience  of  Bom- 
bay and  Poena   in   a  long  letter  which   his    Church 


414  I-IFB   OF  I>B«   DUFF.  1840. 

pulMshed  as  a  complete  narrative  of  travel.  The 
pamphlet  of  thirty-six  pages  forms  an  artistic  picture 
of  Western  India,  its  physical  aspects,  its  varied  races, 
its  different  civilizations  existing  harmoniously  side  by 
side  under  the  shadow  of  the  Christian  Government, 
its  proselytising  and  other  benevolent  agencies,  and 
especially  its  Scottish  mission  and  missionaries.  The 
report,  written  as  he  doubled  Cape  Comorin  on  the 
way  to  Madras  and  Calcutta,  has  a  peculiar  value  from 
the  contrast  which  it  suggests  rather  than  works  out 
between  the  conditions  of  Western  and  Eastern  India 
as  fields  for  the  agencies  of  Christian  philanthropy. 
The  reproach  is  often  too  well  founded  that,  amid  the 
vastness  and  variety  of  India  and  its  peoples,  the 
foreign  resident  becomes  so  enamoured  of  his  own 
presidency  or  province  as  to  do  injustice  to  the  others 
of  which  he  is  more  ignorant.  Hence  the  conflicting 
statements  and  opposing  evidence  of  officials  and 
settlers  who  have  been  twenty  years  in  India  and 
speak  "  the  language."  Like  even  the  greatest  philo- 
sophers, they  are  wrong  onl}'-  in  what  they  deny,  while 
more  or  less  right  in  what  they  assert.  Of  this  weak- 
ness there  is  little  trace  in  Dr.  Duff's  report.  He  was 
too  well  travelled,  too  scrupulously  fair  for  that.  A 
quarter  of  a  century  after  his  visit  we  found  his 
representations  proportionately  true  as  between  the 
natives  of  the  more  imperial  and  superstitious  Bengal 
and  those  of  the  less  caste-bound  and  more  commercial 
Bombay. 

In  Western  India  the  small  community  of  Parsees, 
free  from  caste  and  aggressive  in  their  progress  as 
having  been  long  oppressed,  formed  a  more  remarkable 
element  of  the  population  in  1840  than,  since  the 
commercial  development  caused  by  the  United  States 
civil  war,  has  since  been,  relatively,  the  case.  The 
settlement  of  the  land  revenue  in  leases  directly  be- 


iEt.  34-     BOMBAY  CONTRASTED  WITH  BENGAL.       415 

tween  the  Bombay  Government  and  tlio  cultivator, 
and  the  lapse  of  rent-free  tenures,  did  not  foster  the 
creation  of  such  a  body  of  zemindars,  or  great  and 
generally  absentee  landed  proprietors,  as  those  who 
crowd  native  Calcutta.  The  temporary  nature  of  the 
Bombay  tenure  has  further  proved  fatal  to  the  growth 
of  prosperity  and  of  thrift,  and  has  developed  the 
shocking  agrarian  demoralisation  revealed  by  the 
Deccan  Riots  Commission.  Had  the  land  revenue 
settlement  of  Bombay  ouly  been  made  permanent  with 
the  cultivators,  it  would  have  created  prosperous  and 
loyal  millions  of  peasant  proprietors,  able  to  withstand 
famine,  free  to  attend  to  and  value  education  and 
Christianity,  and  enabled  in  time  to  yield  in  indirect 
taxation  far  more  than  the  periodically  increased  land- 
tax  which  now  keeps  them  on  the  margin  of  starvation. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  mistake  was  made  in  Lower 
Bengal  of  applying  the  financially  sound  and  equitable 
principle  of  permanence  of  tenure  not  to  the  cultivators 
but  to  their  lords,  some  hereditary  and  some  mere  tax- 
collectors,  from  whose  exactions  moreover  they  were 
not  protected  till  1859,  when  it  was  too  late  to  alter 
society.  The  knowledge  of  the  revenue  officials  of 
India  has  never  been  equal  to  their  benevolence. 
Hence,  for  want  of  a  Von  Stein,  the  British  Govern- 
ment, with  the  best  intentions,  has  created  and  is 
periodically  intensifying  the  only  serious  danger  to  the 
stability  of  its  rule  and  to  the  self -developing  growth 
of  civilization.  This  did  not  escape  Dr.  Duff's  eye 
when  he  wrote  of  the  main  bulk  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Bombay,  the  Hindoos : — *'As  the  ryotwaree  system  pre- 
vails— that  which  regards  the  ryot,  the  actual  cultivator 
of  the  soil,  as  having  a  possessory  right  therein,  and  as 
directly  amenable  to  all  the  fiscal  and  other  regulations 
of  Government — there  is  no  large  and  powerful  body 
of  landed  proprietors,  corresponding  to  the  zemindars 


41 6  LIFE   OF  DR.    DUFF.  1840, 

of  Bengal.  From  these  and  other  causes  united,  there 
is  a-  very  marked  difference  indeed  in  the  outward 
temporal  circumstances  of  Hindoo  society  in  Bombay 
and  in  Calcutta.  Most  of  the  avenues  to  worldly 
eminence  being  blocked  up  or  preoccupied  by  enter- 
prising strangers,  and  most  of  the  impellant  motives 
to  great  secular  exertion  being  cut  off,  the  Hindoo 
community  of  Bombay  seems  stricken  with  a  languor 
and  apathy,  a  poverty  and  mediocrity,  a  diminutive 
weight  and  influence,  a  want  of  general  activity  or 
zeal  for  improvement,  which  form  a  perfect  contrast 
to  the  wealth,  and  power,  and  splendour,  the  liveliness, 
and  energy,  and  restless  spirit  of  temporal  ameliora- 
tion, which  characterize  the  great  Hindoo  merchants, 
bankers,  zemindars,  and  rajas  of  Calcutta."  Since 
that  was  written,  trade  and  cotton  manufacture  have 
attracted  the  acute  intellect  of  the  Maratha  Brahmans 
and  the  keen  capital-hunting  scent  of  the  Goojarat 
Jains.  But  this  is  still  true,  to  some  extent,  of  the 
effect  produced  on  public  instruction  by  such  con- 
ditions. Dr.  Duff  is  describing  his  visit  to  the  Govern- 
ment Elphinstone  College  and  schools  : — 

"In  the  schools  there  are  at  present  about  500  pupils  ;  in  the 
college  about  a  dozen.  In  passiug  through  the  different  classes 
it  was  impossible  not  to  be  struck  with  the  sparkling  intelli- 
gence in  the  countenances  of  ti.e  youth.  Yet  none  of  the  more 
advanced  have  begun  to  exhibit  that  freedom  from  prejudice, 
and  that  fearlessness  of  inquiry,  which,  ten  years  ago,  youth  of 
somewhat  the  sa^me  standing  largely  manifested  in  Calcutta. 
What  are  the  causes  of  the  difference  ?  Some  of  these  may 
be  latent ;  others  are  obvious  enough.  First,  the  desire  for  a 
superior  English  education  is  of  later  growth  at  Bombay  than 
at  Calcutta ;  and  even  now  it  is  not  so  ardent  and  widely 
diffused  in  the  former  as  in  the  latter.  The  local  government 
has  not  done  nearly  so  much  to  create  and  encourage  the 
desire  as  that  of  Bengal.  Besides,  one  grand  stimulus  was 
wanting  in  the  west,  which  operated  with  great  potency  in 


JEt  34.  BOMBAY   AND   CALCUTTA.  4 1  7 

the  east.  In  the  west,  Persian,  the  language  of  diplomacy,  was 
not,  as  in  the  east,  also  the  language  of  the  civil  and  criminal 
courts — the  vernacular  tongue  being  from  the  first  adopted. 
In  the  east  it  gradually  became  obvious  to  all  thinking  rainda 
that  an  anomaly  so  pt'epos^erous  as  the  administration  of 
justice  through  a  medium  alike  foreign  to  rulers  and  ruled 
could  not,  in  the  nature  of  things,  be  long  perpetuated.  It 
seemed  the  demand  of  reason  that  the  language  of  one  or  other 
of  the  parties  concerned  should  be  substituted.  In  either  case 
— Persian  ceasing  to  be  the  language  of  polite  literature  and 
of  converse  in  cultivated  society — English  must  take  its  place. 
Hence  it  was  that  a  strong  sense  of  self-interest,  operating  on 
shrewd  forecasting  minds,  gave  an  early  impulse  to  the  study 
of  English  in  Calcutta,  which,  in  like  intensity,  could  not  bo 
experienced  at  Bombay.  Accordingly,  while  in  the  latter 
place  the  aggregate  number,  in  seminaries  of  every  description, 
receiving  anything  really  entitled  to  the  name  of  a  good 
English  education,  scarcely  amounts  to  a  thousand;  in  Cal- 
cutta it  exceeds  five  or  six  times  that  sum,  though  the  popula- 
tion at  the  utmost  is  not  more  than  double.  But  at  Bombay, 
as  elsewhere,  the  English  tide  has  now  fairly  set  in;  and 
nought  can  arrest  its  progress  till  it  overflow  the  land. 
Secondly,  from  the  more  recent  and  limited  character  of 
evangelistic,  educational,  and  other  operations  at  Bombay,  it 
is  at  least  ten  years  behind  Calcutta  as  regards  the  general 
relaxation  of  unthinking  bigotry,  the  general  tendency  of 
indurated  hereditary  prejudices  towards  a  state  of  fusion  and 
incandescence,  and  th«  conse»^uent. general  preparedness  for 
change.  Nursed  and  nurtured  in  a  state  of  society  so  uncon- 
genial to  mental  freedom  of  inquiry,  the  young  men  naturally 
present  a  more  hostile  front  of  resistance  to  the  direct  influences 
of  the  new  ti^uths  offered  for  tlieir  acciaptanoe.  This,  however, 
is  a  cause  the  force  of  which  will  be  yearly  diminishing. 
Thirdly,  in  the  Bombay  Government  seminaries,  a  prepon- 
derant share  of  attention  has  hitherto  been  bestowed  on  the 
polite,  the  mathematical,  and  the  physical  sciences,  to  the  com- 
parative disparagement  and  neglect  of  the  mental,  moral,  and 
economic.  Now,  the  former,  addressing,  as  they  chiefly  do, 
the  imagination,  the  memory,  the  understanding  or  'faculty 
judging  by  sense,'  and  the  speculative  reason,  are  not  calcu- 
lated to  produce  the  same  varied  influential  practical  convic- 

E   E 


41 8  LIFE   OF  DR.    DUFF.  1840. 

ti'ons,  or  to  awaken  tlie  same  bold  and  stirrinpf  activities  of 
inquiry,  aa  tlio  luttei' ;  whose  very  objects  are  the  powers  and 
capacities  of  the  immaterial  soul,  as  well  as  the  duties,  rights, 
privileges  and  relationships  of  man,  viewed  as  a  member  of 
human  society  and  a  denizen  of  the  moral  universe.  A  more 
vigorous  graft,  therefore,  of  the  latter  on  the  Bombay  Govern- 
ment institutions,  would  bo  a  decided  improvement.  Still,  as 
it  is  in  the  hundred  metropolitan  institutions,  tho  noblest,  most 
fruitful,  and  most  enduring  of  all  sciences  would  be  wanting — 
and  that  is  'knowledge  of  Jesus  Christ  and  Him  crucified.' 
Until  it  be  admitted,  for  the  sanctifier  and  regulator  of  all 
other  knowledge,  man's  life  is,  after  all,  treated  practically  as 
nothing  better  than  a  meaningless  riddle;  and  his  destiny  as 
nothing  higher  than  that  of  the  *  brutes  that  perish.' '' 

The  Church  of  Scotland's  Mission,  in  both  Bombay 
and  Poona,  was  suffering  under  the  combined  triumph 
and  alarm  caused  by  the  conversion  of  the  first  two 
Parsees  who  had  accepted  Christianity.  "  The  Parsee 
convulsion,  like  the  shock  of  a  moral  volcano,  has 
more  or  less  affected  every  province  of  missionary 
labour.  It  has  laid  an  arrest  on  the  friendly  inter- 
course which  began  to  subsist  between  the  members 
of  the  mission  and  many  of  the  more  influential  of 
the  native  community.  It  drove  into  alienation  and 
def»ertion  the  young tmc^n  educated  in  Government 
seminaries,  who  had  been  induced  to  attend  Dr. 
Wilson's  former  weekly  lecture,  and  Messrs.  Nesbit 
and  Mitchell's  private  evening  classes.  It  greatly 
affected  the  attendance  on  the  services  in  the  ver- 
nacular languages.  It  broke  up  certain  departments 
in  connection  with  female  education.  It  almost  anni- 
hilated, for  a  time,  the  English  Institution — reducing 
at  once  the  number  of  pupils  from  two  hundred  and 
sixty  to  fifty — and  removing  the  whole  of  the  Parsee 
youth,  by  far  the  most  advanced  and  promising  of  the 
number.  Yet,  in  the  midst  of  all  these  depressing 
and  disheartening  calamities,  did  our  brethren  betray 


^t.  34.  NESBIT  AND   WILSON.  419 

either  faint-lieartcdness  or  despondency  ?  No !  *  Strong 
in  tlie  Lord,  and  in  the  power  of  His  might,'  they  still 
prayed,  and  laboured,  and  persevered." 

Very  precious  were  the  sympathy  an  the  counsel 
of  Dr.  Duff  at  this  time.  Of  Nesbit,  his  old  St. 
Andrews  companion,  ho  wrote,  "With  commanding 
talents  of  an  intensive  rather  than  discursive  character, 
there  is  no  subject  on  which  ho  is  led  to  concentrate 
his  powers  which  he  is  not  sure  to  master  in  a  style 
of  surpassing  superiority.  Hence,  as  a  philosophical 
linguist  and  practical  Marathee  scholar,  he  is  generally 
allowed  to  be  imrivalled."  After  descriptions  of  Dr. 
Wilson's  scholarship,  the  fruits  of  which  he  enjoyed  in 
the  study  of  the  Cave  Temples,  and  of  his  influence  in 
society,  native  and  European,  Dr.  Duff"  thus  testified 
to  his  wisdom  in  the  battle  for  toleration  :  *'  Dr.  Wil- 
son, who  took  the  lead  in  the  whole  proceedings, 
conducted  himself  throughout  with  a  manliness  of 
Christian  energy  which  must  for  ever  endear  him  to  all 
sincere  friends  of  the  missionary  enterprise."  How 
the  great  Bombay  missionary  valued  this  visit  he  has 
told  in  a  remarkable  letter  of  the  28th  February,  1840.* 
Of  Panwel,  where  they  parted  in  apostolic  fashion, 
after  re,a4iiig  th^  20th  chapter  of  tlie  Book  of  the  Acts 
and  prayer,  he  wrote :  "  My  memory  will  often  visit 
the  hallowed  spot  whence  we  moved  asunder."  These 
were  the  closing  words  of 'Dr.  Duff'^  report  on  Bombay 
and  Poona : — 

*'  Intensely  occupied  were  the  days  which  I  spent  at 
both — in  visiting  educational  and  other  institutions ; 
in  witnessing  miscellaneous  missionary  operations ;  iu 
eliciting  all  manner  of  information  which  might  present 
to  my  own  mind  something  like  a  topographical  chart 
of  the  existing  state  of  things;  in  addressing,  lectur- 

*  The  Life  of  John  Wilson,  D.D.,  F.B.S.  (1878),  p.  283. 


420  LIFE    OP   DR.    DUFF.  1840. 

ing,  and  prcacliing;  in  holding  converse  with  my 
brethren,  individually  and  collectively ;  in  freely  can- 
vassing, reviewing,  and  comparing  all  past  proceedings 
connected  with  the  Mission,  at  home  and  abroad  ;  in 
frankly  soliciting  and  communicating  suggestions  as 
to  the  future.  Sweet  and  pleasant  was  the  personal 
intercourse  with  my  respected  brethren ;  very  sweet 
and  very  pleasant  is  the  remembrance  of  it  now. 
Dearly  beloved  before  for  their  works'  sake,  they  are 
now  dearer  than  ever,  from  the  felt  experience  of  their 
worth.  AVe  met  and  we  parted  of  one  spirit  and  of  one 
mind;  not  merely  as  children  of  the  same  Father, 
redeemed  through  the  same  blood,  and  partakers  of 
the  same  inheritance  of  grace ;  but  of  one  spirit  and 
of  one  mind  as  regards  the  essential  principles,  modes, 
and  prospects  of  missionary  operation  in  India." 

The  only  communication  between  the  western  capital 
and  the  metropolis  of  Indian  then  was  by  teak -built 
sailing  vessels  round  the  peninsula.  Dr.  and  Mrs. 
Duff  were  the  only  passengers.  Now,  Mr.  W.  Mac- 
kinnon  has  called  into  existence  the  second  largest 
fleet  of  steamers,  which  carry  the  traveller  rapidly 
and  toiich  at  every  port  on  the  wide-stretching  coasts 
of  Southern  Asia  and  Eastern  Africa,  from  Singapore 
and  the  Java  islands  reaching  to  Australasia,  along 
the  shores  of  India,  Persia  and  Arabia  to  Zanzibar. 
Hugging  the  picturesque  coast  of  Malabar,  the  ship 
passed  native  town  and  feudal  castle,  pirate  stronghold 
and  busy  harbour,  till,  leaving  Goa  to  the  north,  it 
dropped  anchor  for  a  day  and  night  at  Mangalore  in 
the  Canara  county  of  Madras.  This  once  dreaded 
roadstead  of  Hyder  Ali,  scene  of  alternate  Portuguese 
intolerance  and  Mussulman  ferocity,  of  General 
Matthews' s  victory  and  of  the  East  India  Company's 
treaty  with  Tippoo,  had  been  occupied  by  the  self- 
denying  Basel  missionaries  in  1834.     It  has  been  ever 


iEt.  34.      SAMUEL   HEBICH   AND  THE    BASEL   MISSION.  42 1 

since  their  greatest  as  it-  was  their  earliest  Christian 
settlement,  having  now  some  1,200  church  members 
out   of  the   more   than   0,000   gathered   in   at   other 
stations.       In    Hebich,    the    afterwards    famous    and 
somewliat    eccentric    German    then    stationed    there, 
Dr.  Duff  found   a  friend  of  kindred    spirituality  and 
earnestness.      With     him    and     his    colleagues    the 
Scottish  missionary  spent,  the  night  in  delightful  con- 
verse* till  within  an  hour  of  the  dawn.     Frequently 
afterwards  did  Samuel  Hebich  recall  the  talk  of  that 
cightjt    especially   to    the    many   sepoy   officers   and 
civiUans  of  the  East  India  Company,  whom  his  fear- 
less appeals  and  holy  self-denial  led  to  Christ.     Mr. 
Finlay  Anderson,  the  assistant  collector  who  received 
the  Basel  brethren  in  1 834,  still  survives  to  help  in 
every  good  work  for  the  people  of  India.     This  was 
Hebich' s  last  year  in  Man  galore,  where  he  had  laid 
the  spiritual   foundatioti    of  the  Tooloo  church,   and 
left  among  others  Dr.  Moegling,  to  civilize  not  only 
the  Canarese  but  the  recently  annexed  Coorgs  from 
Mercara  as  a  centre. 

Cape  Comorin — too  low  to  be  seen  save  where  the 
Western  Ghauts  abruptly  end  some  miles  inland — and 
Ceylon  were  then  successively  rounded,  when  the  ship 
came  to  anchor  in  the  swell  of  the  Madras  Roads 
for  five  days.  These  days  were  busily  spent  in  an 
inspection  of  the  Mission,  and  in  stirring  addresses  to 
both  natives  and  Europeans.  Mr.  Anderson  and  Mr. 
Johnston,  fruit  of  the  General  Assembly  address  of 

•  So,  long  after,  Dr.  Norman  Macleod  inspected  the  allied  Ger- 
man Mission  at  Calicut,  and  recorded  the  "  very  encouraging  re- 
sults" of  ■which  he  wrote  :  "  These,  being  connected  with  education 
as  well  as  preaching,  are  the  more  likely  to  be  permanent!  " 

t  The  German  Memoir  of  Hebich,  of  which  an  English  transla- 
lation  appeared  in  1876,  contains  no  reference  to  this  meeting  with 
Dr.  Duff. 


422  LIFE    OF   DR.    DUFF.  1840. 

1835,  bad  organized  out  of  the  St.  Andrew's  school, 
opened  by  the  Scotch  chaplains  in  Madras  in  that 
year,  the  nucleus  of  what  has  since  become  the  groat 
Christian  College  of  South  India,  representing  all  the 
evangelical  missions  there.  Just  three  years  before,  on 
the  3rd  April,  1837,  Mr.  Anderson  had  begun  the  new 
Institution  in  a  hired  house  in  Armenian  street,  with 
fifty-nine  Hindoo  youths.  His  early  success,  in  the 
baptism  of  highly  educated  Hindoos  who  became 
missionaries  to  their  countrymen,  had,  as  at  Calcutta 
in  1830,  and  Bombay  in  1839,  so  alarmed  the  native 
community  as  to  produce  this  remark,  "  Some  of  our 
best  youths  have  been  forcibly  carried  off  or  withdrawn 
against  their  will."  Yet,  when  on  Monday,  the  20th 
April,  Dr.  Duff  visited  the  infant  college,  this  was  his 
impression  : — "  It  was  wise  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Ander- 
son and  his  coadjutor  to  make  the  Bible  itself — as  in 
Bombay  and  Calcutta — not  only  the  principal  book  of 
the  Institution,  but  to  bestow  upon  the  teaching  of  it 
the  largest  measure  of  their  time  and  attention,  so 
long  as  this  could  be  done  without  occasioning  that 
desertion  of  pupils  which  the  more  successful  prose- 
cution of  general  literature  and  science  in  other  native 
seminaries  must  inevitably  insure,  if  there  be  not  a 
correspondent  progress  in  such  studies  in  the  Mission 
seminaries.  And  certainly  in  the  Bible  department, 
which  has  been  chiefly  cultivated,  there  is  much,  very 
much,  to  excite  admiration,  delight  and  thanksgiving 
to  God.  xV^o  where  have  I  met  with  young  men  of  the 
same  age  and  standing  who  evinced  a  more  intelligent 
grasp,  a  more  feeling  comprehension,  of  the  divine 
truths  which  they  had  learned  from  God's  holy  oracles. 
In  some  cases,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that 
vital  and  saving  impressions  have  begun  to  be  made. 
And  even  should  all  be  renounced  in  a  day,  what  has 
been  done  will  not,  cannot  be  lost.     Talk  and  dream 


iEt.  34.      THE    SCOTTISH    MISSION    SYSTEM   IN    MADRAS.        423 

who  will  of  not  being  able,  dlrecfh/  ami  formalJ  1/ ,  and 
in  tliG  homo  sonso,  to  preach  the  gospel  in  onr  Indian 
mission  seminaries,  I  do  most  solemnly  aver  for  myself, 
that   never,    never,   when    addressing  an  audience  of 
fellow-Christians  in   my  native  land,   had  I   a   more 
sensible  consciousness  of  reaching  the  understanding 
and  the  heart  than  I  experienced  when  pouring  out 
ray  soul  on  the  themo  of  man's  lost  and  ruined  state 
by  sin,  and  of  man's  redemption  through  a  crucified 
but   Divine  Redeemer,    in  presence  of  the  assembled 
youth  of  the  General  Assembly's  Institution,  Madras." 
On  the  other  side,  we  have  this  official  record  by  Mr. 
Anderson  of  the  visit  of  the  founder  of  the  Scottish 
missionary  system  in  the  East :  "  He  left  an  impression 
behind  him  on  the  minds  of  our  youths  which  nothing 
will  ever  efface.       It  was  quite  thrilling  to  see  how  ho 
set  them  on  fire  by  the  truths  which  he  exhibited  to 
them  in  touching  and  graphic  figures,  with  an  energy 
of   manner   altogether   his   own.      Their  bright   eyes 
seemed  to  say,  as  they  sparkled  with   delight,  *  This 
man  loves  the  natives,  especially  native  boys.'  " 

Dr.  Duff  had  been  delayed  on  his  outward  tour  too 
long  for  himself,  if  ncu  for  the  work  he  had  to  do.  Ho 
reached  the  pilot  ground  at  the  mouth  of  the  Ilooghly 
at  very  nearly  the  same  advanced  season  as  on  the 
occasion  of  his  first  arrival  in  Bengal.  Again  did 
the  rotary  storm  seem  to  defy  his  advance.  The  sus- 
picious calm  of  a  hot  May  evening,  following  a  lurid 
sunset,  warned  the  captain  to  be  ready.  Before  mid- 
night the  cyclone  burst  upon  the  ship  with  savage  fury. 
Lashing  themselves  to  the  cuddy  hatch,  the  captain 
and  his  officers  sat  ready  to  cut  down  the  mast  should 
the  vessel  drift  to  the  shore.  For  twelve  hours  tho 
whirlwind  raged,  with  a  violence  which  was  set  off  by 
a  hideous  and  sometimes  ludicrous  contrast.  An 
officer  who  had  joined  the  ship  at  Madras,  whither  he 


424  LIVE   OP    DB.    DUFF.  1840. 

had  returned  from  leave  in  the  colonies,  and  who  soon 
after  fell  one  of  the  thirteen  thousand  butchered  amid 
the  snows  of  the  Klioord  Kabul  pass,  had  an  Australian 
parrot  which  ho  had  diligently  taught.  Ever  and  anon 
in  the  pauses  of  the  blast,  and  continuously  as  if  con- 
tending with  it,  the  bird  was  hoard  to  shriek,  now  de- 
fiantly, now  pathetically,  '*  There's  nae  luck  aboot  tho 
house  whan  our  gudeman's  awa'  ! "  The  Malabar 
teak  of  the  Bombay-built  vessel  withstood  tho  wind 
and  tho  waves,  and  the  course  of  the  cyclone  finally 
drove  it  out  to  comparative  safety  in  tho  open  sea. 
After  a  voyage  from  Bombay  of  nearly  seven  weeks, 
Dr.  and  Mrs.  Duff  were  received  under  the  hospitab^-e 
roof  of  the  nephew  of  Dr.  Patrick  Macfarlan,  of 
Greenock,  who  was  chief  magistrate  of  Calcutta. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

1841. 
FIGHTINO  THE  aOVEBNOU-GENERAL. 

India  Sncrificed  to  Party  Politics. — ^Malcolm,  M.  Elpliinstone  and 
Lord  Heytesbnry. — The  First  and  tlio  Second  Lord  Auckland. — 
The  Misses  Eden. — Controversy  between  Orientalists  and  Angli- 
cists Renewed. — Lord  Auckland's  Minute. — Mr.  ^[arsliman's  Com- 
ment.— Dr.  Duff's  three  Letters  to  the  Governor- General. — The 
Irony  of  Trnth. — Lord  W.  Bentinck  and  Lord  Auckland  Com- 
pared.— The  Missionary  and  the  Governor- General  Contrasted — 
Vernacular  Education  by  a  School  Cess  urged. — Lord  Auckland 
Arraigned  at  the  Bar  of  Universal  Reason. — The  Dangers  of 
purely  Secular  Education  denounced  by  a  Government  Secretary. 
— The  Educational  Reaction  temporarily  forgotten  in  the  Cabul 
Disasters. 

Lord  Auckland  had  been  Governor-General  for  four 
years  when,  for  the  second  time,  Dr.  Duff  landed  at 
Calcutta.  Apart  from  contemporary  history,  his  ap- 
pointment to  the  most  responsible  office  under  the 
British  Crown  forms  the  most  scandalous  instance  of 
the  sacrifice  of  the  good  of  the  people  of  India  and  of 
the  peace  of  the  Empire  to  the  intrigues  and  the  self- 
seeking  of  political  parties.  India  is  so  far  outside  of, 
so  high  above,  the  level  of  purely  party  politics,  that 
it  used  to  be  true  that  its  governing  and  commercial 
classes  left  Whig  and  Tory  prejudices  behind  them. 
Even  the  purely  British  officials  who,  as  Governor- 
General,  governors,  and  law  member  of  council,  owed 
their  appointments  to  partisan  considerations  among 
others,  were  generally  raised  by  the  very  elevation  of 


426  LIFE    OP  DB.    DUFF.  1841. 

their  duties  to  tlie  disinterested  and  philosophic  level 
which  looked  only  at  the  good  of  India.  From  the 
high  vantage  ground  of  a  Governor-General's  seat, 
the  purely  domestic  questions  which  cause  the  rise 
and  fall  of  ministers  in  England  often  look  petty  in- 
deed. It  may  be  accepted  as  an  absolute  test  wliicli 
marks  off  the  really  able  statesmen  among  the  nine- 
teen Governor-Generals  from  the  few  whom  history 
despises,  that  the  former  in  every  case  acknowledged 
first  their  duty  to  India;  the  latter,  their  selfish  gra- 
titude to  the  party  which  sent  them  out.  Against 
rulers  like  Warren  Hastings,  Lords  Wellesley  and 
Hastings,  W.  Bentiuck  and  Dalhousie,  Canning  and 
Mayo,  we  have  to  set  Cornwallis  (the  second  time), 
Amherst  and  Auckland,  not  to  mention  the  living. 

"William  Eden,  a  younger  son  of  a  Durham  baronet, 
and  a  barrister  who  entered  political  life,  was  created 
Baron  Auckland  for  negotiating  a  treaty  of  commerce 
with  France.  His  successor  rendered  services  to  the 
Whig  party  of  a  less  evident  kind,  and  in  1830  Lord 
Grey  gave  him  a  seat  in  the  Cabinet.  When  sick- 
ness sent  Lord  W.  Bentinck  home  after  an  adminis- 
tration of  nearly  eight  years,  the  Court  of  Directors 
would  not  allow  the  most  brilliant  servant  they  had 
had  since  Warren  Hastings,  to  fill  the  seat  which  he 
occupied  provisionally,  because  his  honesty  had  been 
equal  to  his  ability.  They  were  willing  to  see  the 
Honble.  Mountstuart  Elphinstone  appointed,  but  he 
had  had  enough  of  oflBce  as  Governor  of  Bombay 
and  he  declined  the  high  honour.  On  this  the  Tory 
ministry  selected  Lord  Heytesbury,  who  drew  the 
usual  allowance  for  outfit,  made  the  indispensable 
speech  about  peace  at  the  Albion,  and  had  taken  his 
passage  to  Calcutta.  ^ut  just  as,  under  somewhat 
similar  circumstances,  George  Canning  gave  place  to 
Lord  Amherst,  and  died  Premier  of  England,  so  Lord 


^t.  35.      LOED    AUCKLAND    AND    SIE   J.    0.    HOBHOUSE.       427 

Auckland  was  sent  out  instead  of  Lord  Heytesbury. 
The  Melbourne  ministry  took    office  in  April,  1835, 
with  Byron's  friend,  Sir  John  Cam  Hobhouse  as  Pre- 
sident of  the  Board  of  Control.      Refusing  their  con- 
fidence to  the  Tory  Governor-General    designate,  the 
Whig  ministry,  which  was  to  hold  office  for  six  yenr^ 
and  a  half,  sent  out  Lord  Auckland  to  the  seat  which 
Bentiuck  had  made  more  illustrious  than  ever,  and 
for  which  Metcalfe  and  Blphinstone  were  better  fitted 
than  even  he.      In  a  word,  the  British  Government 
had  once  again  jobbed  the  appointment,  and  the  whole 
empire  was  to  suffer  the  consequence  in  the  military 
disasters,  the  financial  losses,  and — greater  than  both — 
the  political  consequences  in  1857  of  the  first  Afghan 
war.     Sir  John  Cam  Hobhouse,  made  Lord  Broughton 
for   the   iniquity,  found  in    Lord  Auckland   the   tool 
and  in  Lord  Palmerstou,  then  Foreign  Secretary,  the 
confederate  who  enabled  that  reckless,  blinded  official 
to  boast  of  the  deepest  stain  on  the  page  of  English 
history,  "  It  was  I  that  did  it." 

The  best  thing  that  George,  the  second  Lord 
Auckland,  did  was  to  take  to  Calcutta  and  Simla  with 
him  his  two  clever  sisters,  one  of  whom,  Emily,  in 
her  journals,  not  to  mention  her  novels,  has  left  us 
unconsciously  the  most  vivid  picture  of  the  Governor- 
General's  weakness  of  character.  If  to  her  "  Up  The 
Country,"  and  the  book  which  more  recently  followed 
it,  we  add  Sir  John  Kaye's  picture  of  the  unhappy 
faineant  pacing  the  verandas  of  Government  House 
at  night  as  he  brooded  over  the  horrors  of  the  Ghilzai 
massacre  which  made  him  sleepless,  we  may  form  some 
idea  of  the  man  who,  between  Hobhouse  at  home  and 
Macnaghten  by  his  side,  blindly  let  the  empire  drift 
down  the  dark  current  of  a  policy  of  which  he  never 
approved,  but  which  party  prevented  him  from  fairly 
considering  and  resolutely  refusing  to  carry  ou^.     Any- 


428  LIFE   OP   DR.    DUFF.  1841. 

tiling  would  have  been  better  than  this  drifting,  but 
on  him  was  the  curse  against  which  the  prophet  cried 
ill  vain. 

It  was  the  Governor-General's  vacillation — ending, 
as  is  generally  the  case,  in  weakly  following  the  evil — 
which  brought  Dr.  Duff  into  conflict  with  Lord  Auck- 
land. The  missionary  had  set  out  to  return  to  Bengal, 
grateful  to  his  Excellency  for  the  interest  which  he  and 
the  Honble.  Misses  Eden  had  shown  in  the  Institution 
during  ^  's  absence,  by  frequent  visits  and  occasional 
prizes.  As  a  rule  the  English  settlers,  and  above  all 
the  Christian  ministers  in  India,  are  loyally  on  the  side 
of  the  Government  there.  They  are  roused  to  demon- 
strations against  it  only  by  some  sucli  departure 
from  principle  as  Lord  Ellenborough's,  or  evidence  of 
incapacity  to  understand  the  gravity  of  the  crisis  as 
Lord  Canning's  advisers  showed  in  1857.  Up  to  the 
disasters  of  1842  Lord  Auckland — who  had  been  made 
an  earl  in  reply  to  the  opposition  of  the  Court  of 
Directors  and  to  the  universal  public  opinion  which, 
then  as  since,  condemned  his  policy — was  personally 
respected  for  his  amiability.  His  advisers  liked  a 
Governor-General  whom  they  could  lead ;  the  pubHc 
appreciated  the  social  attractions  of  his  court.  Those 
who  estimated  an  administration  by  a  higher  standard 
even  praised  him  for  legally  completing  what  his  pre- 
decessor had  begun  in  the  Act  of  November,  1837, 
which  aboiishb^  Persian  as  the  language  of  the  courts. 

But  another  qu">stion  of  still  greater  importance  to 
the  people  had  come  down  to  him.  Lord  W.  Bentinck's 
Government  had,  ii  1835,  decreed  that  English  should 
be  the  language  of  the  higher  public  instruction — 
finally,  as  it  seemed.  Still  the  formal  approval  of  the 
Court  of  Directors  had  not  been  communicated.  Not 
only  was  Lord  W.  Bentinck  out  of  office,  but  Dr.  Duff 
was  far  away,  and  of  their  coadjutors,  Metcalfe  was  in 


^t.  35.  LORD   AUCKLAND'S   DELHI   MINUTE.  429 

Agra,  while  Macaulay  and  Trevelyan  were  soon  to  go. 
The  defeated  orientalists  saw  their  opportunity  with 
the  new  and  weak  Governor-General.  They  resolved 
to  get  rid  of  the  reform  of  March,  1835,  by  a  side-blow. 
Mr.  Thoby  Prinsep  and  the  Bengal  Asiatic  Society  led 
the  assault.  Mr.  Colvin,  the  private  secretary,  was 
neutralised  or  so  far  talked  over  as  to  seem  to  con- 
sent to  the  undoing  of  that  which  he  had  formerly 
urged. 

From  1836  to  1839,  the  renewed  controversy  between 
the  Orientalists  and  Anglicists  went  on  in  the  form 
of  a  dispute  as  to  the  proportion  of  public  funds  to  be 
assigned  to  each.  On  the  24tli  November,  1839,  Lord 
Auckland  signed,  at  Delhi,  a  minute  which  is  remark- 
able among  Indian  state  papers  for  its  Dad  stylo  and 
worse  reasoning.  The  contrast  to  Macaulay's  and 
Duff's  was  painful.  The  minute  professed  to  be  a 
compromise  of  a  dispute  in  which  there  could  be  no 
concessions  by  what  was  true  to  what  the  Govern- 
ment had  officially  allowed  to  be  false  and  therefore 
unworthy  of  being  propagated  by  the  public  funds. 
But  the  defeated  Anglicists  were  not  to  be  found,  save 
one.  Mr.  Marshman,  though  rather  a  vernacuUirist, 
raised  his  solitary  voice  against  the  reaction  in  the 
weekly  press.  The  minute  itself  no  sooner  appeared 
in  an  official  blue-book,  fifteen  months  after  it  had 
been  written,  than  Dr.  Duff  criticised  it  in  a  series 
of  letters  to  Lord  Auckland  which  appeared  in  the 
Christian  Observer.  Mr.  Marshman,  though  grateful 
to  the  Governor-General  for  his  personal  support  of 
vernacular  schools,  did  not  spare  the  weak  amiability 
which  had  led  his  Excellency  to  apply  "  the  spirit  of 
compromise  amongst  varying  opinions  "  to  a  contro- 
versy over  vital  principles.  The  orientalists  he 
described,  in  1841,  as  "a  few  elderly  gentlemen  of 
the  ancient  regime,  who  rather  dislike  the  spread  of 


430  I-IFE   OF   DR.   DUrP.  1841. 

knowleclf]fo  as  a  clanf::orous  innovation  tLan  hail  it  witli 
generous  confidence  as  the  means  of  national  regener- 
ation ;  who,  if  compelled  by  the  spirit  of  the  age  to 
sanction  education  at  all,  must  use  every  endeavour  to 
restrain  it  to  the  absurdities  and  logomachies  of  the 
dark  ages.  .  .  When  a  retrograde  movement  is 
made  merely  to  quiet  a  few  superannuated  European 
gentlemen,  and  extinguish  their  already  expiring  mur- 
murs, wo  confess  it  passes  our  comprehension. 
AVhat  will  be  gained  by  their  reconciliation,  or  to  what 
will  they  be  reconciled  ?  " 

The  evil  which  the  minute  had  secretly  attempted 
to  do  was  twofold.  It  reversed  the  decree  of  Lord 
AV.  Bentiuck  by  restoring  the  stipends  paid  to  natives 
to  learn  Sanscrit  and  Arabic  books  which  their  own 
learned  men  neglected  where  they  did  not  teach  them 
far  more  effectually  in  the  indigenous  *  Toles '  or 
colleges.  Thus  error  was  again  endowed,  while  true 
orienial  research  was  hindered.  And  the  minute 
finally  shelved  the  plan  for  the  improvement  of  ver- 
nacular schools  and  teachers  which  Lord  W.  Bentinck 
had  appointed  Adam  to  submit.  Lord  Auckland  be- 
came the  victim  of  what  was  afterwards  scouted  by 
his  successors  as  the  filtration  theory — the  belief  that 
if  only  the  higher  classes  are  educated  with  the  public 
money,  tlie  millions  of  the  people  who  contribute  that 
money  may  be  left  in  their  ignorance  till  the  know- 
ledge given  to  their  oppressors  filters  down  to  them. 
Seriously  that  con  tin  tied  to  be  the  fact,  if  not  the 
theory  of  the  Government  in  Bengal,  at  least,  for  the 
thirty  years  from  Lord  Auckland's  minute  to  the  time 
when  Sir  George  Campbell  was  made  Lieutenant- 
Governor  of  the  province. 

Dr.  Duff  did  well  to  be  angry,  for  his  experience 
and  his  foresight  anticipated  the  mistake.  Lord 
Auckland  thus  became,  not  only  the  foe  of  a  righteous 


^t.  35-  LETTERS   TO   LORD   AUCKLAND.  43 1 

policy  beyond  the  frontier  but  the  r'^actionary  enemy 
of  the  people  of  India.  But  for  him  the  vernacular 
side  of  the  reforms  of  Duff  and  Bentinck  would  have 
become  a  reality  long  before  the  present  Earl  of 
Derby's  despatch  of  1859  on  the  subject  issued  in  the 
Duke  of  Argyll's  action,  through  Sir  George  Campbell 
in  1870.  Happily  Lord  Auckland  was  too  feeble  even 
to  stunt  the  already  vigorous  growth  of  the  English 
side  of  these  reforms.  So,  taking  Wordsworth's  lines 
as  his  introduction,  Dr.  Duff  thus  began  the  corres- 
pondence. The  language  now  reads  as  fine  irony,  since 
a  few  brief  months  were  to  reveal  the  incapacity  of 
Lord  Auckland  and  his  Government,  at  home  and  on 
the  spot,  with  its  miserable  results.  But,  early  in 
1841,  Dr.  Duff  used  such  language,  as  the  whole  press 
of  the  time  did,  in  all  good  faith  and  loyalty.  Had 
not  Baron  Auckland  just  been  made  an  earl  for  his 
apparent  success? 

"  Oh  !  for  the  coming  of  that  glorious  time 
When,  prizing  knowledge  as  her  noblest  wealth 
Ar  1  best  protection,  this  imperial  realm, 
V;  lile  she  exacts  allegiance,  shall  admit 
An  obligation  on  her  part  to  teach 
Them  who  are  born  to  serve  her  and  obey; 
Binding  herself  by  statute  to  secure 
For  all  the  children  whom  her  soil  maintains. 
The  rudiments  of  letters  ;  and  to  inform 
The  mind  with  moral  and  religious  truth." 

"My  Lord, — When  the  Governor-General  of  India  has 
recorded  his  sentiments  on  a  great  national  question,  and 
when  these  have  been  rapturously  responded  to  by  so  many  of 
the  councillors,  the  judges,  the  secretaries,  and  the  leaders  of 
public  opinion,  it  may  be  deemed  presumptuous  in  a  Christian 
missionary  to  lift  up  his  voice  at  all;  more  especially  should 
that  voice,  however  feeble,  seem  to  mingle  as  a  note  of  discord 
amid  the  fresh  full  gale  of  popular  applause.  And  so  it  would 
be,  were  the  question  exclusively  one  of  mere  worldly  policy. 
But  when  it  is  found  to  be  one  which,  in  its  essential  bearings, 
concerns  the  souls  fully  as  much  as  the  bodies  of  men,  affect- 


432  LIFE    OP  DR.    DUTF.  1 841. 

ing  the  interests  of  eternity  not  less  than  those  of  time,  the 
Christian  missionary  must  not,  tlaros  not  be  silent,  evm  if 
his  voice  sliould  be  uplifted  against  kings  and  governors  and 
all  earthly  potentates.  When  the  honour  and  glory  of  his 
Divine  Master  and  the  imperishable  destinies  of  man  are  in- 
volved, the  ambassador  of  Jesus  can  brook  no  dalliance  witli 
mere  human  greatness,  or  rank,  or  power.  In  the  spirit  of  St. 
Basil,  in  the  presence  of  the  Roman  prefect,  he  is  ever  ready 
to  exclaim  : — '  In  all  other  things  you  will  find  us  the  most 
mild,  the  most  accommodating  among  men  ;  we  carefully  guard 
against  the  least  appearance  of  haughtiness,  even  towards  the 
obscure  citizen,  still  more  so  with  respect  to  those  who  are 
invested  with  sovereign  authority ;  but  the  moment  that  the 
cause  of  God  is  concerned  we  despise  everything.' 

"  In  the  influence  of  policy  and  arms,  you  are,  my  lord,  at 
this  moment,  the  first  man  in  Asia.  Speak  but  the  word  for 
peace  or  for  war,  and  that  word  will  speedily  cause  itself  to  be 
felt  fi'om  Ceylon  to  Bokhai'a,  from  the  Euphrates  to  the  Kianko. 
Thus  planted  on  an  eminence  which  would  make  most  men 
giddy,  it  is  no  small  achievement  to  have  so  maintained  the 
equilibrium  and  balance  of  the  mental  powers,  that,  amid  the 
blaze  of  conquest  and  the  echoes  of  victory,  you  could  have 
paused  to  indite  a  calm  dispassionate  dissertation  on  edu- 
cational economics.  But  does  it  follow  that  the  first  man  in 
Asia,  in  policy  and  arms,  must  also  be  the  first  in  the  depart- 
ment of  intellectual  and  moral  husbandry  ?  This  may  be  ;  but 
all  the  probabilities  are  against  it. 

"  Thac  the  author  of  the  immortal  work  on  '  The  Conduct 
of  the  Human  Understanding '  should  be  the  author  of  the 
equally  immortal  '  Thoughts  on  Education,*  is  nothing 
strange.  The  intellectual  habit  from  which  the  former  pro- 
ceeded formed  the  best  possible  discipline  and  preparation  for 
the  production  of  the  latter.  But  that  the  intellectual  habit 
from  which  resulted  the  celebrated  Simla  ukase  on  British 
policy  in  Central  Asia  should  prove  the  best  discipline  and 
preparation  for  inditing  a  Delhi  minute  on  national  education, 
would  be  passing  strange.  Who  that  has  studied  the  human 
mind,  or  attended  to  the  lessons  of  past  experience,  could 
reasonably  expect  Lord  Auckland  to  be  equally  at  home — 
equally  great— in  both  ?  When  the  first  statesman  in  Asia 
steps  aside  from  his  own  towering  eminence  to  grapple  with  a 


^t.  35.  LORD  AUCKLAND  CONTRASTED  WITH  BENTINOK.        433 

theme  that  is  wholly  foreign  to,  and  incompatible  with,  his 
general  habits,  he  must  reckon  it  no  disparagement  if  of  him  it 
be  recorded,  as  of  Newton  and  of  Brown  in  similar  circum- 
slauces,  that  he  has  gone  out  as  another  man  1  Still,  as  the 
Commentary  on  Daniel  will  bo  perused  because  it  is  the  pro- 
duct of  the  author  of  the  '  Priucipia,*  and  the  poem  of  the 
*  Paradise  of  Coquettes '  will  be  read  because  it  claims  the 
same  paternity  as  the  lectures  on  *  The  Philosophy  of  the 
Human  Mind,'  so  v/ill  the  Delhi  minute  on  native  education 
obtain  currency  and  favour  because  it  is  the  offspring  of  a 
politician  and  statesman  who  is  at  the  head  of  the  most  power- 
ful empire  in  Asia.  And  as,  in  the  cases  of  Newton  and  of 
Brown,  the  splendour  of  their  great,  their  immortal  works, 
is  apt,  from  the  blending  of  association,  to  shed  and  diffuse 
a  portion  of  their  own  lustre  over  the  kindred  but  inferior 
progeny  of  the  same  minds ;  so  will  the  dazzling  renown  of 
the  present  Governor-General  of  India,  as  a  statesman,  be  sure 
illusively  to  communicate  a  share  of  its  own  brilliancy  to  a 
production  which  otherwise  might  soon  have  sunk  into  obli- 
vion ; — a  production  which  is  remarkable  chiefly  for  itc. 
omissions  and  commissions — remarkable  for  its  concessions 
and  its  compromises — remarkable,  above  all,  for  its  education 
without  religion,  its  plans  without  a  providence,  its  ethics 
without  a  God  1  '* 

Having  reviewed  the  whole  controversy  in  Lord 
W.  Bentinck's  time,  very  much  in  the  tone  of  his 
"  New  Era  of  the  English  Language,"  Dr.  Duff  comes 
to  this  conclusion  in  his  first  letter  : — 

"  Here  are  two  systems  of  education,  directly  opposed  to 
each  other,  and  absolutely  contradictory  in  their  entire  sub- 
stance, scope  and  ends.  Reviewing  these  two  systems.  Lord 
W.  Beutinck,  with  the  straightforward  bearing  of  British 
manliness  and  British  courage  in  the  spirit  which  fired  the  old 
barons  of  Runnymede,  and  with  the  decisive  energy  of  uncom- 
promising principle,  thus  pronounced  his  decision  :  '  Regard- 
less of  the  idle  clamours  of  interested  partisanship,  and  fearless 
of  all  consequences,  let  us  resolve  at  once  to  repudiate  alfcogethor 
what  is  demonstrably  injurious,  bccaijse  demonstrably  false, 
and  let  us  cleave  to  and  exclusively  promote  that  which  i* 


434  I'IFE   OP   DR.   DUFF.  1841. 

demonstrably  beneficial,  because  demonstrably  true.'  Review- 
ing tlio  very  same  system,  my  Lord  Auckland,  with  what  looks 
very  like  the  tortuous  bearing  of  Machiavellian  policy,  in  the 
spirit  of  shrinking  timidity  wliich  heretofore  hath  compro- 
mised the  success  of  the  best  laid  schemes,  and  with  the 
Protcus-like  facility  of  temporizing  expediency,  thus  enun- 
ciates his  contrary  verdict :  *  Fearful  of  offending  any  party, 
wishing  to  please  all,  and  anxious  to  purchase  peace  at  any 
price,  let  us, — dropping  all  minor  distinctions  between  old  and 
new,  good  and  bad,  right  and  wrong, — let  ..i  at  once  resolve 
to  embrace  and  patronize  both,  and  both  alike  : — 

'Tros  Tyriusvo  mibi  nullo  discrimino  liabetur.' 

"In  a  word,  'Let  us,'  says  Lord  W.  lientinck,  'disendow 
error  and  endow  only  truth,'  '  Let  us,'  replies  Lord  Auckland, 
'  re-endow  error,  and  continue  the  endowment  of  truth  too.' 
A  decision  so  wholly  at  variance  with  every  maxim  of  truth 
and  righteousness,  a  decision  so  utterly  repugnant  to  the  pro- 
gressive spirit  of  the  age,  what  valid  plea,  what  plausible  grounds 
can  be  adduced  to  justify  ?  Justify  !  It  surely  must  scorn  all 
justification  as  impossible,  and  any  attempt  at  justification  as 
the  most  ludicrous  farce.  Bub  seeing  that  vindication  is  im- 
practicable, does  it  not  admit  of  some  palliatives  ?  If  palliatives 
there  be,  they  may  be  summed  up  in  a  single  sentence ;  viz., 
that  it  was  most  kind  and  amiable  to  soothe  the  expiring 
sorrows  of  the  superannuated  remnant  of  the  race  of  orien- 
talists, who,  like  the  owls  and  the  bats,  have  such  a  special 
affection  for  the  dingy  and  the  dismal  edifices  of  hoar  antiquity, 
and  who,  like  these  lovers  of  darkness,  are  ever  ready  to  break 
forth  into  strains  as  doleful  as  the  notes  of  a  funeral  dirge, 
when  the  crazy  crevices  in  which  they  have  so  long  nestled  are 
threatened  with  extermination  !  Most  kind  and  amiable  we 
admit  all  this  to  be  !  But,  beyond  this  admission,  where  are 
we  to  look  for  grounds  of  palliation  ? 

"  These  words  are  penned  in  the  full  assurance  that  with 
your  lordship  and  councillors  they  will  not  have  the  weight  of 
a  feather.  So  let  it  bo.  Here,  your  lordship  is  evei'ything. 
Here,  politically  and  civilly  speaking,  your  voice  is  all  but 
omnipotent.  Speak  but  the  word,  and  thousands  are  ready  to 
shout,  '  It  is  the  voice  of  a  god  ! '  Speak  but  the  word,  and 
thousands  more  ai'e  ready  to  fall  down  and  worship  whatever 


^.t.  35.  THE  MISSIONARY  AND  THE  GOVERNOR-GENERAL.      435 

idol  or  imago  you  may  be  pleased  to  sot  up.  Here,  on  the 
other  liiiud,  the  humble  missionary,  in  a  worldly  sense,  neither 
is,  nor  desires  to  bo,  anything.  Lot  him  but  speak  the  word, 
and  lo,  it  is  the  voice  of  a  fanatic  !  Let  him  but  give  forth  his 
warnings,  and  lo,  they  are  treated  with  supercilious  scorn  or 
branded  as  a  grand  impertinence.  But,  ray  lord,  I  must 
remind  you  that  the  greater  the  power,  the  more  tremendous 
the  responsibility  !  I  must  also  remind  you  that — apart  from 
the  solemnities  of  the  great  assize  to  which  the  noble  and  tho 
mighty  will  be  sumnioned,  without  respect  of  persons,  along 
with  the  poorest  and  the  meanest  of  the  land — there  is,  even 
here  below,  another  tribunal,  of  a  different  frame  and  texture 
from  that  of  an  Asiatic  time-serving,  favour-seeking  com- 
munity, at  whoso  bar  tho  appeal  of  a  gospel  minister  will  bo 
lieard  as  promptly  as  that  of  tho  noblest  lord.  There  is  a 
British  public,  and  abovo  all,  a  religious  public  in  Great 
Britain,  which  heretofore  hath  been  moved,  and  may  readily 
be  moved  again,  by  tho  addresses  and  expostulations  of  a 
Chi'istian  missionary.  It  was  the  righteous  agitation  of  this 
public  which  wi'onched  asunder  the  bars  of  prohibition  to  tho 
Ireo  ingress  of  Bibles  and  heralds  of  salvation  into  India.  It 
was  the  righteous  agitation  of  this  public  which  accelerated 
and  insured  the  abolition  of  tho  nun-derous  rite  of  suttee.  It 
was  tho  righteous  agitation  of  this  public  Avhich  foredoomed 
the  ultimate  severance  of  official  British  connection  with  tho 
mosques  and  temples  and  idolatrous  observances  of  this  be- 
nighted people.  And  rest  assured,  my  lord,  that  as  certainly 
as  the  rising  sun  chases  away  the  darkness  of  night,  so  certainly 
Avill  the  righteous  agitation  of  this  same  British  public  even- 
tually wipe  away,  as  a  blot  and  disgrace,  from  our  national 
statute  book,  that  fatal  act,  by  which  your  lordship  has  restored 
the  Government  patronage  and  support  to  the  shrines  and 
sanctuaries  of  Hindoo  and  Muhamraadan  learning  with  all 
their  idolatrous,  pantheistic  and  antichristian  errors !  A 
sui'cr  prospect  of  earning  the  garland  of  victory  no  Christian 
missionary  could  possibly  desire,  than  the  opportunity  of 
boldly  confronting,  on  a  theme  like  this,  the  mightiest  of  our 
state  functionaries,  in  the  presence  of  a  promiscuous  audience 
of  British-born  free-men,  in  any  city  or  district,  from  Cornwall 
to  Shetland.  His  march  would  be  that  of  one  continued  con- 
quest.   The  might  and  the  majesty  of  a  great  people,  awakened 


43^  LIFE   OP   DR.   DOFF.  1841. 

to  discern  the  truth  and  import  of  things  as  thoy  are,  wouhl 
increasiii<jfly  swell  his  train.  And,  from  the  triumph  of  in- 
doniitiil)le  principle  in  Britain  would  emanate,  as  in  times  past, 
an  influence  which  would  soon  cause  itself  to  bo  felt  in  the 
supreme  councils  of  India,  and  thence  extend,  with  renovating 
efficacy,  through  all  its  auti -religious  schools  and  colleges.'* 

In  the  second  letter,  v,ith  consummate  art  as  well  as 
fairness  Dr.  Duff  takes  out  of  the  minute  and  holds  up 
to  eulogy  all  of  it  that  lie  can  justly  praise.  Especially 
does  he  thank  the  Governor-General  for  at  last  carry- 
ing out  his  own  recommendation  of  1834,  to  promote 
true  oriental  scholarship  by  *'  a  separate  grant  for  the 
publication  of  works  of  interest  in  the  ancient  literature 
of  the  country,  to  be  disbursed  through  the  appro- 
priate channel  of  the  Asiatic  Society."  He  corrects 
the  mistake  which  would  build  the  pyramid  of  national 
education  on  its  apex,  beginning  with  the  college, 
going  on  afterwards  to  the  secondary  school,  and 
leaving  the  millions  without  primary  schools.  He  tells 
what  John  Knox  and  his  associates  did  for  Scot- 
land in  1500.  He  urges  that  the  same  means  which 
the  Scottish  Parliament  then  decreed  be  adopted  by 
the  Indian  Government,  in  levying  a  school  cess  on  the 
land-tax,  as  a  road  cess  had  even  then  begun  to  be 
raised.  "  So  might  a  permanent  education  fund  be 
established,  proportionate  to  the  wealth  and  population 
of  each  province,  by  *  the  surrender  in  return  of  one 
per  cent,  of  the  revenue  on  the  part  of  the  revenue 
receivers  for  educational  purposes.'  Well  might  such  a 
sum,  or  one  hundredth  part  of  their  immense  revenue, 
b'^  pronounced  the  very  minimum  amount  that  India — 
sunk,  depressed,  benighted  India — has  a  right  to  ex- 
pect or  demand  from  her  rulers  for  securing  one  main 
ingredient  of  the  panacea  of  her  intellectual,  moral  and 
social  maladies."  Such  a  cess  was  raised  first  in  Bom- 
bay, and  then  by  the  late  Earl  of  Kellie  in  a  district 


y^t.  35.  APPEAL  TO  TIIR  STATESMEN  OP  ALL  COUNTRIES.       437 

of  Central  India,  till  now  it  is  exacted  all  over  India. 
But  it  is  not  the  revenue  receivers  who  pa}^  it.  Rather 
liavo  cesses  of  all  kinds,  of  which  that  for  schools  is 
the  least,  been  added  to  the  peiiodically  increased 
land-tax,*  till  the  burden  of  tho  long-sutl'ciing  culti- 
vators is  gi'eater  than  they  can  bear. 

The  third  letter  arraigned  Lord  Auckhmd  and  his 
advisers  at  tho  bar  of  universal  reason,  as  spiritually 
guilty  in  their  education  schemes  "  of  what  looks 
like  treason  against  the  majesty  and  sovereignty  of 
the  God  of  providence ;  of  the  cruelest  wrong  to  tho 
souls  and  immortal  destinies  of  thousands  "  of  their 
Indian  fellow-subjects.  After  a  very  practical  exposi- 
tion of  the  fact,  ever  since  pressed  upon  tho  Govern- 
ment of  India  in  vain,  that  it  stands  alone  of  all  tho 
world  in  the  suicidal  attempt  to  support  by  public 
taxation  an  official  system  of  education  which  jealously 
excludes  religion  of  every  kind  and  the  sanctions  of 
morality,  Dr.  Duff  thus  closed  :  "  For  tho  substantial 
justice  of  tho  charge  I  appeal — not  to  the  religious 
public  of  Great  Britain  alone — but  to  the  recorded 
verdicts  of  the  Russells  of  England,  the  Cousins  of 
France,  the  Falcks  of  Holland,  the  Altcnsteins  of  Ger- 
many and  all  the  greatest  and  most  celebrated  states- 
men of  ancient  and  modern  times  1" 

The  appeal  remained  unheeded  by  the  Government 
till  1854.  The  concession  then  solemnly  made  by  the 
present  Lord  Halifax  and  by  Lord  Dalhousie,  to  tho 


♦  In  theory,  half  the  net  produce  of  the  land  is  left,  on  tho  system 
of  thirty  years  leases,  to  the  cultivators,  ifear  by  year  cesses  have 
been  imposed,  till  tho  State  takes  sixty  per  cent,  and  the  peasant 
receives  only  forty.  The  latest  impo«t  is  that  of  a  cess  to  be 
"  solemnly,"  "  religiously,"  set  apart  !i.s  a  reserve  for  the  famines 
which  the  periodical  increase  of  the  'and-tax  provokes.  This  new 
burden  has  no  sooner  been  paid  for  the  first  time  than  it  has  been 
used  to  carry  on  the  second  Afghan  war. 


438  LIFE    OF   DR.    DUFF.  1841. 

effect  that  the  State  would  adopt  the  English  position 
of  giving  grants  for  secular  education  and  retiring 
from  its  functions  as  a  direct  schoolmaster  whenever 
the  public  would  take  its  place,  has  never  been  carried 
out.  As  a  commentary  on  Dr.  Duff's  appeal  in  181-1, 
on  the  broken  j)ledgo  which  he  secured  in  1S51<  fi'oni 
Parliament,  on  the  alarm  of  Lord  Northbrook  in  1875, 
on  the  censorship  of  the  native  press  in  1877,  and  on 
the  annually  increasing  political  as  well  as  moral  and 
spiritual  danger  of  the  system,  wo  may  cite  this  ex- 
tract, made  confidentially  to  one  of  Lord  Auckland's 
successors  in  1872  by  the  Home  Department  which  is 
charged  with  the  imperial  direction  of  public  instruc- 
tion in  India : — 

"  That  most  remarkable  feature  in  Indian  education,  tlio 
religious  neutrality  of  the  Government,  is  no  doubt  a  relic  of 
the  extreme  apprelieusion  which  prevailed  in  1 793,  and  whether 
its  original  declaration  was  a  wise  one  or  not  is  far  too  deep 
and  many-sided  a  question  to  be  discussed  here.  Wo  must 
accept  the  fact  as  we  find  it.  But  it  is^  I  believe,  absolutely 
without  precedent  or  parallel  elsewhere,  besides  beiug  entirely 
opposed  to  the  traditional  idea  of  education  current  in  the 
East.  In  Europe,  it  is  almost  an  axiom  that  the  connection  of 
any  State  system  of  education  with  religion  is  not  the  mere 
result  of  tradition  ;*  '  it  is  an  indissoluble  union,  the  bonds  of 
which  are  principles  inseparable  from  the  nature  of  education.' 
This  is  admitted  almost  universally.  Even  the  French  system 
is  religious,  not  in  the  sense  in  which  all  European  systems 
profess  to  be  more  or  less  so,  in  inculcating  the  precepts  of  a 
certain  universal  and  indisputable  morality,  but  in  inculcating 
morality  in  the  only  way  in  which  the  masses  of  mankind  will 
ever  admit  it,  in  its  connection  with  the  doctrines  of  religion. 
In  Holland,  primary  instruction  was  decided  in  a  much  debated 
law  to  be  designed  to  train  '  to  the  exercise  of  all  Christian 
and  social  virtues,'  while  respecting  the  convictions  of  dis- 
senters.     In  Switzerland,  religion  stands  on  the  same  footing 

*  Public  Education,  by  Sir  J.  K.  Shuttleworth,  p.  290. 


A'A.  35.         DANnF.RS   OP   A   NATIONAL   SECUTATIISM.  439 

ns  reading,  writing,  grammar  and  arithmetic,  as  a  fundamontal 
part  of  the  schomo.  In  Germany,  generally,  religion  still 
forms,  as  it  has  always  done,  the  first  and  staple  subject  of 
the  elementary  school,  and  tho  religion  of  the  master  must  bo 
in  conformity  with  that  of  tho  majority  of  his  pupils.  Tho 
American  system,  while  repudiating  all  doctrinal  or  dogmatic 
teaching,  provides  everywhere  for  the  regular  daily  reading  of 
tho  Bible  and  for  prayer.  \nd,  lastly,  tho  framers  of  tiio 
Phiglish  Education  Act,  1870,  have  been  able  to  assumo  as  a 
matter  of  course  that  every  elementary  school  would  be  con- 
nected with  a  recognised  religious  denomination,  and  that 
Government  aid  might,  therefore,  bo  oiTered  to  all  alike  for 
secular  education  only.  * 

"  In  India,  not  only  is  there  no  religious  teaching  of  any 
kind  in  Government  schools,  but  even  tho  aided  schools  under 
native  managers  are  generally  adopting  tho  same  principle.  I 
believe  this  result  was  never  anticipated,  and  I  am  sure  it 
requires  attention.  Looking  to  tho  rapid  growth  of  our  educa- 
tional system,  and  to  the  enormous  inilucnco  for  good  or  evil 
that  a  single  able  and  well  educated  man  may  exercise  in  this 
country ;  and  looking  to  the  dense  but  inflammable  ignorance 
of  tho  millions  around  us,  it  seems  a  tremendous  experiment 
for  the  State  to  undertake,  and  in  some  provinces  almost 
monopolise,  the  direct  training  of  whole  generations  above 
their  own  creed,  and  above  that  sense  of  relation  to  another 
world  upon  which  they  base  all  their  moral  obligations ;  and 
the  possible  evil  is  obviously  growing  with  the  system.  It  is 
true  that  things  go  smoothly  and  quietly,  but  this  is  attained 
by  ignoring  not  only  the  inevitable  results  of  early  training  on 
the  character  and  tho  great  needs  of  human  nature,  especially 
in  tho  East,  but  by  also  ignoring  tho  responsibility  which 
devolves  on  tho  Government  that  assumes  the  entire  control 
of  direct  education  at  all.  If,  therefore,  while  fanaticism  is 
raging  around,  there  is  a  calm  in  our  schools  and  colleges,  it 
is  an  ominous  and  unnatural  calm,  of  impossible  continuance, 
the  calm  of  the  centre  of  the  cyclone. 

"  The  subject  is  one  of  extreme  difficulty,  that  grows  with 
the  consideration  devoted  to  it.  Of  course  it  is  out  of  the 
question  to  recede  in  any  degree  from  the  pledges  of  the  past. 


Mr.  Gladstone's  speech,  Ilansard,  vol.  CCII.,  p.  2G7. 


440  LIFE    OF    DTI.    DUFF.  1841. 

And  it  is  probable  that  the  evil  is  less  serious  in  primary 
schools  whore  the  instruction  given  does  not  necessarily  de- 
stroy religious  belief,  whereas  our  higher  instruction  does. 
Therefore,  although  the  State  may  establish  and  maintain 
primary  schools  where  no  local  effort  is  forthcoming,  it  v,'ould 
still  seem  very  desirable  that  it  should  retire  as  rapidly  and  as 
coi  plctely  as  practicable  from  the  entire  control  of  all  direct 
instruction,  and  especially  higher  instruction,  and  leave  it  to 
local  management  to  bo  encouraged  by  the  State,  and  aided 
in  conformity  with  the  English  principle  which,  without  any 
interference  in  the  religious  instruction  imparted,  practically 
insures  by  tho  constitution  of  the  local  boards  that  some 
religious  instructiou  is  regularly  given.' 


» 


We  shall  see  this  vital  question  coming  up  again 
and  again  to  the  very  close  of  Dr.  Duff's  life,  when,  as 
he  lay  a-dying,  liis  memory  went  back  to  tliis  conflict 
with  Lord  Auckland,  and  he  longed  that  his  life  might 
be  spared,  if  only  to  fight  till  he  won  tho  battle  against 
a  neutrality  which  is  not  neutral  to  but  carefully  fosters 
the  worst  error ;  against  a  secularism  which  is  fast 
robbing  the  Hindoos  even  of  the  natural  religion  and 
traditional  truth  of  their  own  system,  till  they  them- 
selves cry  out.  The  Christian  college  stands  alone 
in  the  breach  which  tho  rising  flood-tide  is  threatening, 
while  Church  and  State  look  on  apathetically. 

Even  the  daily  newspapers  of  Calcutta  republished 
Dr.  Duff's  letters,  and  made  them  the  I'.ubject  of  edi- 
torial comment.  "  As  no  press  ever  struggled  more 
manfully  for  its  own  liberty,"  he  wrote  in  a  note  to 
bis  reprint  of  the  correspondence,  "  so  none  has  on 
the  whole  ever  less  abused  that  liberty  when  conceded. 
In  this  respect  the  sentence  of  Sir  J.  0.  Hobhouse 
must  be  regarded  as  downright,  though  perhaps,  in 
his  happy  ignorance  of  Indian  affairs,  unintentional 
calumny."  Bat  the  subject  was,  in  a  few  months, 
swallowed  up  in  the  snows  of  Afghanistan,  with  our 


JF.t.  35-        '^HE    FIRST    AND    SECOND   AFGHAN    WARS.  44 1 

thirteen  tliousand  troops  and  tlicir  ofTicers.  Lord 
Auckland  began  his  evil  policy  in  July,  1837,  with  Lord 
W.  Bentinck's  hard-earned  surplus  of  a  million  and  a 
half  sterling.  He  was  created  an  earl  in  1840,  for 
that  march  to  Ghuznee  which  made  Sir  John  Keano  a 
baron  though  he  forgot  his  battery-tra^n.  The  more 
denounced  an  evil  policy  is  the  more  fruitful  of  hon- 
ours is  it  expedient  for  the  responsible  ministry  of  the 
day  to  make  it.  Sir  J.  C.  Hobhouse  himself  became 
Lord  Broughton !  In  January,  1812,  when  ho  had 
packed  his  baggage  to  return  home  triumphant.  Lord 
Auckland  received  intelligence  of  the  bloody  collapse 
for  which  he  had  converted  his  great  predecessor's 
surplus  into  a  deficit  of  two  millions,  had  added  enor- 
mously to  the  debt  of  India,  had  shaken  the  English 
power  in  the  East  till  it  nearly  fell  in  pieces  in  1857, 
had  allied  his  country  with  iniquity — and  yet,  had  not 
succeeded  in  warning  his  successors  forty  years  after 
against  following  in  his  blood-stuined  feeble  footsteps. 
It  fell  to  Henry  Lawrence  and  George  Clerk,  to  Colin 
Mackenzie  and  George  Broadfoot,  to  save  the  residue 
of  the  troops  and  to  rescue  the  captives  alike  from  tho 
imbecility  of  the  Whig  Governor-General  and  from  the 
madness  of  his  Tory  supplanter. 


CHAPTER  Xy. 

1841-1843. 
THE  COLLEGE  AND  ITS  SPIRITUAL  FRUIT. 

Outwai'd  Signs  of  the  Progress  of  a  Decade. — The  Second  Convert 
a  Christian  Minister. — Tlie  College  Building.s. — The  Staff  of 
Five  j\lissionaries. — Tneir  Unity  in  Variety. — The  College  Re- 
organized.— A  Normal  Training  Class. — Dr.  Duff's  Educational 
System  then  contrasted  with  the  State  Colleges  now. — The 
Spiritual  Machinery. — The  Female  Orphanage. — Legal  Disabili- 
ties and  Social  Oppression  of  Hindoo  Widows. — The  Native 
Christian  Family.— The  Death  of  Dr.  Duff's  Child  in  Scotland.— 
Dr.  Inglis  and  his  Son,  the  Lord  President. — Sympathy  with 
Mrs  Briggs,  of  St.  Andrews. — The  j\[ovement  in  Krishnaghur. — 
A  New  Vaishnava  Sect. — Dr.  Duff  visits  the  District  twice. — Inter- 
view with  the  Gooroo  of  the  Woi"shippei"s  of  the  Creator. — New 
Stations  at  Cahia  .and  Ghospara. — The  Eight  New  Converts 
from  the  College. — Mahendra's  First  Sermon. — lieview  of  the 
Twelve. — Proclamation  of  Peace  in  Afghanistan  and  China, — 
Lord  Ellenborough. — Dr.  Duff's  Anticipations. 

When  Dr.  Duff  landed  at  Calcatta  to  begin  the  second 
period  of  liis  work  in  India,  even  he  was  astonished 
at  the  outward  signs  of  progress  which  ten  years 
of  English  education  under  really  enlightened  British 
administration  had  brought  about.  No  one  could 
doubt  that,  in  the  great  cities  and  intellectual  centres 
at  least,  as  in  Italy  of  the  first  three  centuries,  and 
again  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries,  the 
Renaissance  was  a  fact.  Even  on  his  way  from  the 
ship  to  his  own  college-building  and  principrd's  or 
senior  missionary's  residence,  which  he  had  yet  to  see, 
he  passed  through  a  succession  of  such  outward  evi- 
dences, which  he  reported  in  his  own  graphic  style  to 
Dr.  Brunton. 


^t.  35.         0UTWA1?D    SIGNS    OF   THE    RENAISSANCE.  443 

Tlie  first  object  that  Lad  caught  his  eye  on  landing 
was  a  sio^nboard  on  which  were  marked  in  laro-o  char- 
acters  the  words,  "  Ram  Lochun  Sen  &  Co.,  Surgeons 
and  Druggists."  Not  six  years  had  passed  since  the 
pseudo-orientalists  had  declared  that  no  Hindoo  would 
be  found  to  study  even  the  rudiments  of  the  healing 
art  through  anatomy.  But  here,  scattered  over  the 
native  town,  were  the  shops  of  the  earlier  sets  of  duly 
educated  practitioners  and  apothecaries  who  had  begun 
to  find  in  medicine  a  fortune  long  before  the  chicane 
of  law  attracted  them  to  our  courts. 

"When  I  gazed  at  the  humble,  yet  significant,  type 
and  visible  symbol  before  me  of  so  triumphant  a 
conquest  over  one  of  the  most  inveterate  of  Hindoo 
prejudices — a  conquest  issuing  in  such  beneficial  prac- 
tical results — how  could  I  help  rejoicing  in  spirit  at 
the  reflection  that,  under  Divine  providence,  the 
singular  success  of  your  Institution  was  overruled  as 
one  of  the  main  instruments  in  achieving  it  ?  Oh ! 
that  a  like  energy  were  put  forth — an  energy  like  to 
that  which  characterized  the  Divine  Physician — for 
the  healing  of  the  spiritual  maladies  of  the  milHons 
around  us !  Holy  Spirit !  do  Thou  descend  with  a 
Pentecostal  effusion  of  Thy  grace.  Come  from  tho 
four  winds,  0  breath,  and  breathe  upon  these  slain, 
that  they  may  live.  Blessed  be  God  that  the  belter 
cause  is  neither  wholly  neglected,  nor  without  promise. 

"After  passing  the  Medical  College  itself,  the  next 
novel  object  which  in  point  of  fact  happened  to  attract 
my  atteniion  as  I  approached  Cornwallis  Square,  was 
a  handsome  Christian  church,  with  its  gothic  tower 
and  bu^^tresses,  and  contiguous  manse  or  parsonage. 
iVnd  who  was  the  first  ordained  pastor  thereof  ?  Tho 
Rev.  Krishna  Mohun  Banerjca,  once  a  Koolin  Brah- 
man of  the  highest  caste ;  then,  through  the  scheme 
of   Government   education,  an  educated    atheist  and 


444  I-IFE    OF   DR.    DUFF.  1841. 

editor  of  the  77/? ^^zaV^^r  newspaper ;  next  brought  to  a 
saving  knowledge  of  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  and 
admitted  into  the  Christian  Church  by  baptism, 
through  the  unworthy  iustrumentaUty  of  him  who 
now  addresses  you ;  and,  last  of  all,  ordained  as  a 
minister  of  the  everlasting  gospel  by  the  Bishop  of 
Calcutta,  and  now  appointed  to  discharge  the  evan- 
gv'^lical  and  pastoral  duties  of  the  new  Christian  temple 
which  was  erected  for  himself  I  What  a  train  of 
pleasing  reflection  was  the  first  view  of  this  edifice 
calculated  to  awaken  !  Men  there  are  who,  practically 
ignorant  of  the  real  nature  of  the  gospel  and  of  the 
power  of  God's  grace  themselves,  still  choose  to  deny 
the  possibility  of  converting  Hindoos  of  good  caste. 
To  repudiate  with  holy  indignation  the  downright 
atheism  of  such  denial,  it  is  enough  for  the  believer  to 
know  that  with  God  all  things  are  possible.  But  here 
was,  in  addition,  a  sensible  refutation  of  the  atheistic 
dogma.  Here  is  not  a  low  caste,  but  a  high  caste 
Hindoo,  yea,  one  of  the  highest  order  of  the  Brah- 
manical  caste  in  India;  not  an  ignorant  man,  but 
one  who,  having  gone  through  an  ample  course  of 
European  literature  and  science,  explored  the  labyrinth 
of  Hindooism  with  the  torch  of  modern  illumination, 
and  deliberately  rejected  his  ancestral  faith  as  a 
tissue  of  absurdity,  superstition  and  cruelty;  not  a 
rash  enthusiast,  but  one  who,  in  his  ignorance  of  a 
better  faith,  having  been  led  to  deny  the  very  being 
of  a  God,  was  persuaded,  on  the  ground  of  reason  and 
consistency,  to  examine  the  claims  of  natural  and 
revealed  religion;  one  who,  having  had  his  under- 
standing opened,  to  discern  the  resistless  force  of 
evidence,  and  his  heart  deeply  affected  by  a  sense  of 
the  suitableness  and  adaptation  of  the  gospel  remedy 
to  his  felt  condition  as  a  guilty  and  helpless  sinner  in 
the  sight  of  God,  publicly  and  solemnly  embraced  the 


Mt.  35.  THE    FIBST   BENGALEE   MINISTER.  445 

Christian  faith,  through  the  sacred  ordinance  of  bap- 
tism.   Such  has  been  the  steadfastness  of  his  Christian 
walk  and  conversation  for  the  last  eight  years,  that 
even  the  bitterest  enemies  among  his  own  countrymen 
now,    with    one    accord,    acknowledge    his    sincerity. 
Nor   has  he   been   inactive   in   his   Master's  service. 
Naturally  endowed  with  no  ordinary  degree  of  energy 
and  force  of  character,  he  has  laboured  assiduously 
and  successfully  as  a  teacher,   a  catcchist,  and  now 
an  ordained  minister  of  the  gospel  of  salvation.      He 
preaches  regularly  both  on  Sundays  and  week-days, 
in  Bengalee  and  in  English,  to  suit  the  wants  of  this 
country,  to  men  who  have,  or  have  not,  acquired  a 
European   education.     Nor  has  he  laboured  in  vain. 
ThrouG:h  his  faithiul  ministrations  not  a  few  have  been 
shaken    out    of   their    idolatries.      Several   educated 
natives  of  high  promise  have  professed  Christianity ; 
and  some  already  act  as  his  fellow-helpers  in  advanc- 
ing: the  cause  of  the  Redeemer  in  this  bonio*hted  land. 
Who  can  dare  to  gainsay  facts  so  notorious  and  de- 
^xsive  ?     And  do  they  not  amount  to  a  visible  demon- 
stration of  the  wretched  fallacy  of  the  atheistic  dogma, 
of  the  alleged  impossibility  of  converting  high  caste 
Hindoos  ?     Shall  we  glory  in  being  able  to  appeal  to 
such  emphatic  demonstration  ?    Never,  never !  so  far  as 
man's  instrumentality  is  concerned.     But  we  glory  in 
the  Lord.    His  is  the  kingdom,  and  His  the  power,  and 
His  too — and  His  alone — must  be  all  the  glory  !     *  It 
is  the  doing  of  the  Lord,  and  marvellous   in  our  eyes.' 
"  Of   the  Bengalee  sermons  preached  in  this  new 
church    the    author   has    published   a   small   volume. 
They  are  designed  specially  for  Brahmans  and  other 
high  caste  Hindoos.     Both  from  their  stylo  and  sub- 
stance they  are  admirably  calculated  for  the    object 
designed.      Of   this   work,   remarkable   as  being   the 
first  volume  of  regular  sermons  ever  published  Ux  the 


44^  J^IFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  1841. 

Bengalee  language  by  a  Brahman  convert  and  ordained 
preacher  of  the  gospel,  and  peculiarly  enhanced  in 
our  estimation  from  the  circumstance  of  its  author 
being  one  of  the  first-fruits  of  the  Church  of  Scotland's 
Mission  to  India,  I  shall  endeavour,  by  the  first  oppor- 
tunity, to  send  you  a  copy.  Nor  is  the  illustration 
hereby  aff'ordcd  of  another  process  of  paramount 
importance  to  be  overlooked.  What  is  wanted  to 
insure,  under  God,  the  rapid  and  extensive  spiritual 
regeneration  of  India,  is  not  an  exotic  artificially 
sustained  life,  but  an  indigenous,  self-sustaining,  self- 
propagating  life.  Here,  then,  is  the  process  com- 
menced in  this  great  heathen  metropolis.  One  has 
been  called  of  God,  endowed  with  such  gifts  of  nature 
and  endowments  of  grace,  as  to  have  not  only  life  in 
himself,  and  for  himself,  but  life  so  abundantly  as  to 
be  enabled,  through  the  Divine  blessing,  to  communi- 
cate a  portion  to  others  around  him.  These  already, 
in  the  good  providence  of  God,  have  been  blesf  ,d  in 
imparting  a  share  of  their  own  vitality  to  others;  who 
must  bo  destined  to  impart  the  same  to  others  still,  in 
an  onward  progression,  through  an  ever  widening 
circle.  The  rate  of  augmentation,  at  first  gradual  and 
almost  imperceptible,  may  at  length  advance  with  a 
rapidity  which  might  well  make  the  present  pioneering 
generation  incredulous.  Here  there  is  one  case  where 
Christianity  may  be  said  to  have  fairly  taken  root  in 
the  Indian  soil,  where  the  process  of  indigenous  self- 
propagation  may  be  said  to  have  fairly  begun.  The 
poor  earthen  vessel  which  had  originally  been  employed, 
under  Providence,  in  conveying  the  seed  of  life  to  this 
portion  of  the  Indian  soil,  after  depositing  the  seed  in 
the  spot  pre-ordained  and  chosen  of  God,  became 
shattered  and  useless.  To  prove  that  it  had  nought 
to  do  with  the  giving  of  the  increase,  the  human 
instrument  was  wholly  withdrawn  from  the  field.     By 


^t  35.  THE  MAIN  DESIGN  OP  THE  MISSIONARY  COLLEGE.    447 

his  witlidrcawal  was  the  process  of  indepcndont  self- 
diffusion  arrested  ?  On  the  contrary,  in  the  particular 
instance  under  review,  it  progressed  more  rapidly  than 
ever.  And  though  the  original  conveyer  of  the  seed 
had  died,  or  had  never  returned,  the  process  would 
have  still  gone  on,  to  the  praise  of  God's  glorious 
grace.  Surely  a  statement  of  fact  like  this  might  well 
dart  a  ray  of  new  light  into  the  darkest  caverns  of 
prejudice  and  unthinking  bigotry.  Surely  it  might 
open  up  a  glimpse  of  the  holy  and  noble  extent  and 
purpose  of  the  most  fret^uently  misunderstood  part  of 
our  labours.  For  what  is  the  main  and  leadinGf  desi^fn 
of  all  our  Christian  schools  and  missionary  colleges  ? 
Is  it  not,  in  humble  dependence  on  the  blessing  and 
fruitful  increase  of  God's  Holy  Spirit,  to  raise,  and 
rear  up,  and  multiply  a  superior  race  of  natives 
who,  like  the  Rev.  Krishna  Mohun  Banerjea,  shall  be 
privileged  to  originate  and  perpetuate  the  mighty 
process  of  gospel  propagation  through  all  the  cities 
and  provinces  of  India  ? 

"  After  passing  the  new  church,  which  stands  out  to 
the  eye  so  pleasing  a  monument  of  the  incipient  pro- 
gress of  Christian  influence  in  this  heathen  metropolis, 
I  came  full  in  view  of  the  Assembly's  new  Institution 
and  Mission-house,  on  the  opposite  side  of  CornwalliL^ 
Square.  Gratifying  as  some  of  the  preceding  spec- 
tacles were,  this  to  me  was  the  most  gratifying  of  all. 
What  a  change  since  May,  1830,  and  how  different  the 
thoughts  and  feelings  of  the  spectator  I  Then,  almost 
the  only  thing  determined  on  was,  that  Calcutta  should 
not  be  my  head-quarters  and  fixed  abode ; — now,  I 
saw  before  me  my  head-quarters  and  permanent 
residence.  Then,  the  precise  line  of  operations  to  be 
adopted  was  not  only  unknown,  but  seemed  for  a 
while  incapable  of  being  discovered,  as  it  stretched 
away  amid  the  thickening  conflict  of  contending  dif- 


44^  LIFE   OF   DR.    DUFF.  184 1. 

ficultios ; — now,  there  stood  before  mo  a  visible  pledge 
and  token  that  one  grand  line  of  operation  had  long 
been  ascertained,  and  cleared  of  innumerable  obstacles, 
and  persevered  in  with  a  stead  fastness  of  march  which 
looked  most  promisingly  towards  the  destined  goal. 
Then,  I  had  no  commission,  but  either  to  hire  a 
room  for  educational  purposes  at  a  low  rent,  or  to 
erect  a  bungalow  at  a  cost  not  exceeding  £30  or 
£40 ; — now,  there  stood  before  me  a  plain  and  sub- 
stantial, yet  elegant  structure,  which  cost  £5,000  or 
£G,000.  Then,  it  was  matter  of  delicate  and  painful 
uncertainty  whether  any  respectable  natives  would 
attend  for  the  sake  of  being  initiated  into  a  compound 
course  of  literary,  scientific  and  Christian  instruction; 
— now,  600  or  700,  pursuing  such  a  course,  were  ready 
to  hail  me  with  welcome  gratulation.  Then,  the  most 
advanced  pupils  could  only  manage  to  spell  English 
words  of  two  syllables,  without  comprehending  their 
meaning;— now,  the  surviving  remnant  of  that  class 
were  prepared  to  stand  an  examination  in  general 
English  literature,  science  and  Christian  theology, 
which  might  reflect  credit  on  many  who  have  studied 
seven  or  eight  years  at  one  of  our  Scottish  colleges. 
Then,  the  whole  scheme  was  not  merely  ridiculed  as 
chimerical  by  the  worldly-minded ;  but  as  unmissionary 
if  not  unchristian,  in  its  principles  and  tendencies,  by 
the  pious  conductors  of  other  evangelizing  measures  ; 
— now,  the  missionaries  of  all  denominations  resident 
in  Calcutta,  not  only  approve  of  the  scope,  design  and 
texture  of  the  scheme,  but  have  for  many  years 
been  strenuously  and  not  unsuccessfully  attempting 
to  imitate  it  to  the  utmost  extent  of  the  means  at  their 
disposal.  Yea,  so  strong  has  the  conviction  of  some 
of  them  become  on  the  subject,  that  in  some  instances, 
they  have  laboured  to  promote  the  object  not  only 
without  the  sanction,  but  almost  in  spite  of  the  declared 


Mt.  35.       THE  PROGRESS  OF  A  DECADE.  449 

sentiments  of  tlie  home  committees  of  the  parent  socie- 
ties; and,  as  one  of  the  number  (who  has  devoted  the 
last  fifteen  years  exclusively  to  Bengalee  preaching,  but 
who  has  gradually  become  an  entliusiastic  admirer  and 
advocate  of  our  scheme,  as  one  of  the  migliticst  engines 
for  the  dissemination  of  the  gospel  in  India)  again 
and  again  declared  to  me,  in  the  presence  of  other 
missionary  brethren,  the  main  argument  employed 
by  them  in  writing  to,  and  expostulating  with  their 
home  committees,  has  been  an  appeal  to  the  model, 
example,  and  palpable  success  of  our  Institution. 
Then — not  to  multiply  more  contrasting  parallelisms, 
— it  was  my  lot  to  stand  alone,  without  any  actual 
assistance  or  practical  co-operation  whatever, — alone, 
yet  not  alone,  for  I  was  driven  the  more  urgently 
to  look  to  God  as  my  helper  and  my  counsellor,  my 
fortress  and  my  tower; — now,  I  was  to  join  four 
beloved  brethren,  one  iL  spirit,  one  in  mind,  one 
in  purpose,  one  in  resolution,  able,  ^v^illing,  ready 
mutually  to  assist,  mutually  to  co-operr-te  in  carrying 
out  the  great  generic  principles  of  the  Mission  into 
thei.i'  full  and  legitimate  development.  In  the  midst 
of  such  a  crowding  profusion  of  past  remembrances, 
and  present  realities,  and  future  prospects,  I  trust  that 
the  presiding  feeling  after  all  was  gratitude  to  the 
Father  of  mercies,  and  joy  in  the  God  of  our  salvation. 
Who  am  I — did  the  soul  instinctively  cry  out — who 
am  I,  that  the  Lord  should  condescend  so  graciously 
to  visit  lae  ?  After  being  in  deaths  oft,  after  so  many 
perils  by  land  and  water,  after  so  much  unprofitable- 
ness and  unworthiness,  who  am  I,  that  I  should  have 
so  much  given  me  of  my  heart's  desire  ?  that  I  should 
be  spared  to  witness  so  much  of  what,  ten  years  ago, 
had  been  pronounced  to  be  the  wild  dreams  of  a 
visionary,  actually  realized  ?  Almost  instinctively  was 
I  led  to  appropriate  and  apply,  in  a  very  humble  and 

G   G 


450  I-IPE    OF   DK.    DUFF.  1841. 

subordinato  sense,  tlie  words  of  aged  Simeon  : — *  Lord, 
now  lettest  Thou  Tliy  servant  depart  in  peace ;  for 
mine  eyes  have  seen  Thy  salvation,  whicli  was  prepared 
before  the  face  of  all  people, — a  li<^lit  to  lighten  the 
Gentiles,  and  the  glory  of  Thy  people  Israel.'  " 

If  the  college  building  and  the  mission-house,  with 
their  spacious  grounds,  in  a  fine  open  square  and  yet 
close  to  the  busiest  part  of  the  native  city,  formed  the 
fruit  of  his  homo  labours  on  which  ho  could  look  with 
legitimate   satisfaction,  much  more  had  he  reason  to 
rejoice  in  the  colleagues  who  had  followed  him,  and 
had  so  well  carried  out  his  plans  during  his  absence. 
The   whole    staff,   with   Dr.   Duff  again  at   its  head, 
formed  a  remarkable  group  of  five  pioneers,   such  as 
no  other  mission  has  probably  ever  enjoyed  at  ono 
time.     Dr.  AY.  S.  Mackay,  whom  we  have  previously 
described,    had   bravely   brought   a  spirit   of   intense 
devotion  and  unusually  high  intellectual  grace  to  bear 
up  his  frail  body,  until  the  arrival  of  Dr.  Ewart  soon 
after  Dr.  Duff's  first  departure  set  him  free  to  obey 
the  physician's  order.     He  had  restricted  his  energy, 
but  in    1838    had  been   forced  to  visit   Tasmania  in 
search  of  health.     In  the  Australian  colonies  he  had 
pled  for  the  Mission  with   a  quiet   power  which   led 
many  of  the  churches  to  try  to  detain  him.     But  de- 
claring that  even  at  the  risk  of  chronic  sickness  there 
vvas  no  career  like  that  of  an  Indian  missionary,  he 
had  returned   to  his  post,  shipwrecked  like  Duff   in 
the  Bay  of  Bengal.     Dr.  Ewart  seemed  a  man  whose 
physique  the  tropics  could  not  touch,  even  when  he 
lectured  and  taught  for  six  hours  a  day  and  rested, 
only  to  give  up  his  evenings  to  the  increasing  inquirers 
and   converts.      Mr.  Macdonald    had   found   a   place 
peculiarly  his  own  in  tbe  purely  theological   work  of 
evangelizing  all  the  classes,  and  specially  of  training 
the    catechumens   who    sought  to   be  first  catechists 


^t.  35.  THE    FIVE   MISSIONARIES.  45  I 

and  tlien  ordained  missionaries  to  their  country- 
men. Youngest  of  all,  and  now  the  only  survivor, 
Dr.  T.  Smith  after  a  visit  to  the  Capo  of  Good 
IIopi.  to  throw  off  the  tlien  too  fatal  dysentery  of 
Bengal,  had  amply  redeemed  the  promise  which  Dr. 
Dull'  saw  in  him  when  presiding  at  his  ordination  in 
St.  George's,  as  a  spiritually  aggressive  mission.'uy  to 
the  educated  Hindoos  and  as  the  first  mathematician 
then  in  the  East.  St.  Andrew's  kirk,  too,  was  a  lielp 
to  the  Mission  rather  than  a  drag  on  its  energies,  as  in 
former  days,  under  the  two  chaplains,  Dr.  Charles  and 
Mr.  Meiklqjohn.  Thus  generously,  but  truthfully,  did 
Dr.  DufF  write  home  of  the  colleagues  who  only  needed 
him  among  them  to  consolidate  and  carry  out  to  still 
wider  results  their  varied  labours. 

"Our  missionary  brethren,  Messrs.  IMackay,  Ewart, 
Macdonald  and  Smith,  have,  in  different  ways,  been 
labouring  up  to  the  full  measure  of  their  strength,  and 
some,  it  is  to  be  feared,  beyond  their  strength.  Of 
the  rich  and  varied  endowments  and  graces  which  all 
of  these  have  been  privileged  to  bring  to  bear  upon 
this  great  missionary  field  it  is  impossible  to  think, 
without  admiration  of  the  disinterested  devotedness 
wherewith  all  have  been  consecrated  to  the  advance- 
ment of  God's  glory ;  or,  rather,  without  adoring  grati- 
tude towards  Him  who  bestowed  the  willing  heart  to 
refrard  such  self-consecration  as  one  of  the  chiefest  of 
the  privileges  of  the  heirs  of  glory.  How  admirable 
the  ordinance  of  Heaven!  Diversities  of  gifts — yet 
one  spirit !  Here  there  are  five  of  us,  born,  brought 
up,  educated  in  different  parts  of  our  fatherland,  in 
diverse  circumstances  and  amid  indefinitely  varying 
associations.  Still,  when  thrown  together,  in  the 
inscrutable  counsels  of  Divine  providence,  in  a  strange 
and  foreign  land,  without  losing  any  one  of  our  pecu- 
liar idiosyncrasies,  we  find  that  we  are  one  in  spirit. 


452  LIFE    OF   DE.    DUFF.  1841. 

one  in  the  prime  actuating  motives,  one  in  the  grand 
design  and  end  of  our  being !  Blessed  be  God  for 
the  realization  of  such  oneness  and  harmony,  as  the 
l^roduct  of  a  genuine  Christiari  love.  With  one  accord, 
for  reasons  a  hundred  times  reiterated,  we  regard  our 
]\Iission  Institution  as  the  central  point  of  our  opera- 
tions. In  the  present  exigencies  of  India,  it  cannot 
be  otlierwise  in  the  eye  of  any  largely  observant  and 
contemplative  mind.  From  an  intelligent  conviction 
of  the  peculiar  character  of  the  present  wants  of  India, 
as  well  as  from  voluntary  obligation,  we  all  feel  our- 
selves pledged,  systematically,  to  devote  a  due  propor- 
tion of  our  time  to  the  advancement  of  the  interests  of 
an  Institution  which  has  already  infused  so  much  of 
the  leaven  of  divine  truth  into  the  vast  mass  of  native 
society ;  and  which  promises,  with  the  Divine  blessing, 
to  infuse  still  more.  The  remainder  of  our  time  is 
daily  devoted  to  prayer-meetings,  conversations,  dis- 
cussions, preaching,  translation,  preparation  of  tracts, 
or  any  other  miscellaneous  objects  of  a  missionary 
character  which  may  present  themselves  in  the  course 
of  providence,  or  which  may  best  comport  with  the 
ability  or  predilection  of  the  individual  labourers." 

By  1841,  too.  Dr.  Duff's  return  enabled  him  to 
reorganize  the  Institution  in  all  its  departments, 
rudimentary  school  and  college,  English  and  Oriental. 
AYliile  the  ecclesiastical  doctrine  and  practice  of 
Presbyterian  parity,  of  the  equality  of  ordained  elders 
lay  and  clerical,  governed  the  presbytery  and  the  kirk 
in  all  purely  spiritual  things,  organization  required 
something  more  for  the  efficient  wo^^^ing  of  a  great 
college  and  a  growing  mission.  All  the  gifts  and 
varied  energies  of  the  five  men  must  be  utilized  and 
directed  to  the  one  spiritual  end  of  the  immediate 
conversion  of  the  students,  as  the  test  of  a  system 
which  aimed  at  far  more,  even  the  ultimate  subver- 


^t.  35.  THE   COLri^GE    EEORGANIZED.  453 

sion  of  the  whole  Brahmanical  system  and  the  substi- 
tution of  an  indigenous  Christian  Church.  Dr.  Duff's 
earhest  act  was  to  propose  the  formation  of  a  mis- 
sionary council  to  meet  regularly  for  consultation  and 
prayer  under  the  senior,  or  whomsoever  the  Church 
at  home  might  recognise  as  the  senior,  on  account 
of  peculiar  fitness  for  the  presidency  of  a  Christian 
collco^e.  The  macliinew  thus  establislied  within  the 
Presbyterian  ecclesiastical  system,  has  ever  since 
worked  as  well  as  in  any  divinity  or  university  Seuatus 
in  Scotland.  Men  who  are  not  only  gentlemen,  but 
gentlemen  of  the  highest  type — the  Christian,  will  find 
no  difficulty  in  such  cases  save  when  a  mistake  is 
made  in  adding^  to  their  number.  The  odium  ecdesi- 
asticum  is  a  sure  gauge  of  the  diminution  of  the  love 
of  Christ,  not  a  proof  of  intelligent  earnestness  for  the 
truth.  For  one  Athanasius  there  are  a  thousand  like 
Paul  of  Samosata.  Certainly,  with  the  exception  of  the 
two  sacerdotal  parties  of  the  Church  of  Rome  and  in 
the  Church  of  England,  foreign  missions  or  mission- 
aries have  ever  testified  to  the  Churches  which  sent 
them  forth,  that  in  Jesus  Christ  there  is  neither  party 
nor  sect,  that  the  devil  is  a  common  enemy  strong 
enough  to  require  all  the  unity  of  the  evangelical 
forces.  How  Dr.  Dufi"s  reorganization  of  the  Mission 
was  received  by  his  colleagues,  Dr.  Mackay  thus  officially 
reported  to  the  committee :  ''  Dr.  Duff"  will  tell  you  of 
our  meeting  together  regularly  for  consultation,  and 
of  what  we  have  agreed  on ;  but  I  cannot  refrain  from 
saying,  that  in  all  our  new  and  complicated  arrange- 
ments, arising  out  of  our  increased  number  and  ef- 
ficiency, there  has  been  no  difference  of  opinion ;  and 
we  are  all  agreed  as  one  man.  Each  is  satisfied  with 
his  own  peculiar  work,  and  all  are  satisfied  that  every- 
thing has  been  done  for  the  best.  In  Christ  we  feel 
that  we  have  one  Head,  one  end,  and  one  mind ;  and 


454  I*"^    OF  DR.    DUFF.  1841. 

believing,  wo  pray  that  we  may  always  labour  together 
in  peace,  and  unity,  and  love." 

To  no  subject,  when  in  Scotland,  had  Dr.  Duff 
devoted  more  of  his  little  leisure  than  to  the  careful 
inspection  of  all  educational  improvements  in  school 
and  college  made  during  his  absence  in  India.  These  he 
now  proceeded  to  adapt  to  his  Bengalee  circumstances. 
He  had  the  buildings,  the  library,  the  philosophical 
apparatus  for  scientific  and  technical  training — every- 
thingf  but  the  assistant  native  teachers.  In  all  India 
there  was  not  a  normal  school  at  that  time.  The 
Mission  had  raised  its  own  subordinate  masters,  but 
on  no  regular  system.  He  saw  that  his  first  duty  was 
to  devote  part  of  the  strength  of  his  increased  staff  to 
the  systematic  training  of  native  schoolmasters.  He 
had  introduced  the  gallery  system,  as  it  was  called,  into 
India  for  the  first  time.  Every  Saturday  the  Institu- 
tion was  crowded  by  visitors  to  see  the  novel  siglit  of 
some  three  hundred  boys  from  six  to  twelve  exercised 
after  the  most  approved  fashion  of  David  Stow,  begin- 
ning with  gymnastics  and  closing  with  an  examination 
on  the  Bible.  Here  was  his  practising  department. 
Daily,  since  he  lived  in  the  grounds,  did  Dr.  Duff  him- 
self induce  all  the  native  teachers  to  remain  for  an 
hour,  when  lie  taught  them  "  Paideutik,"  with  results 
which  soon  showed  themselves  in  the  increased  efficiency 
of  the  school.  Not  only  so,  but  he  was  continually 
called  on  to  surrender  his  best  teachers  to  other 
Missions  and  to  Government,  while  he  was  consoled  by 
the  consciousness  that  he  was  thus  extending  a  Chris- 
tian, as  well  as  educational  influence,  far  and  wide. 
To  utmost  Sindh,  as  it  then  was,  as  well  as  far  eastern 
Burma  the  college  sent  forth  teachers  of  other  schools, 
as  well  as  officials  for  the  many  subordinate  and  some- 
times higher  appointments  of  the  State,  so  that  the 
little  leaven  was  gradually  leavening  the  whole  lumpj. 


^t.  35*        '^^^   COLLEGE    CURRICULUM    AND    METHODS.         455 

The  General  Assembly's  Institution  at  that  time  was 
strongest  in  the  two  allied,  though  too  often  divorced 
subjects,  of  physical  and  mental  science.    The  mission- 
aries themselves  were  fresh  from  the  higliest  honours 
in  the  classes  of  Chalmers  and  Jackson,  Leslie  a  id  J. 
Forbes,  Brown  and  Wilson.     Of  the  five,  four  were 
masters  in  the  field  of  mathematics,  pure  and  applied. 
Dr.  Duif  himself  lectured  on  chemistry,  but  his  special 
delight  lay  in  the  exposition  of  psychology  and  ethics, 
leading  up  through  natural  religion   to    the    queenly 
theology  of  revelation.  A  native  student  of  that  time,* 
who  has  now  been  for  years  a  professor  in  a  Govern- 
ment college,  bears  this  testimony  to  the  intellectual 
and  scientific  training  of  a  period  when  "  cram  "  was 
unknown,  when  competition  had  not  learned  at  onco 
to  stimulate  and  to  poison  the  higher  education,  and 
when  physical  science  was  taught  as  the  handmaid  of 
faith.     Dr.  Duff  lectured  on  the  methods  of  teaching 
pursued  in  Scotland,  in  Switzerland,  in  Germany,  in 
Pr:i^jdia;    and   expounded   the   systems    of   Stow,    of 
Fellenberg,   and    of    Pestalozzi.      Two    things    were 
greatly  insisted   on   throughout   the   classes — a  clear 
conception  of  an  idea  in  the  mind,  and  the  expression 
of   that  conception  in  words.     "  Duff  did  not  think 
that  a  boy  had  thoroughly  caught  hold   of    an  idea 
unless  he  could  express  it  in  his  own  words,  however 

*  Rev.  Lai  BoLari  Day,  professor  of  Englisli  Literature  in  the 
Government  College,  Hooghly,  Tliese  were  the  studies  of  tlio 
highest  college  class,  in  18 13  : — In  Theology  :  the  Bible,  Scriptural 
doctrines  with  textual  proofs,  Greek  Testament,  Taylor's  "  Traus- 
missiou  of  Ancient  Books,"  Paley's  "  HoroD  Paulinas."  In  English  : 
Milton's  "Paradise  Lost,"  Young,  Bacon's  Essays  and  "Novum 
Organum,"  Foster's  Essays.  In  Psychology :  Brown's  Lectures, 
Whately's  Logic  and  Rhetoric.  In  Mathematics :  analytical  geometry, 
spherical  trigonometry,  conic  sections,  the  diilerential  calculus,  optics. 
In  Physics  :  geology,  magnetism,  steam  navigation.  In  Sanscrit:  the 
Mugdhaboda.     In  Pciaiun  :  the  Gulistau  and  Bostan. 


^5^  LIFE   OF   DR.   DUFF.  1841. 

inelegantly.  We  therefore  took  no  notes  of  explana- 
tions given  by  the  professors;  indeed,  no  notes  were 
given  in  the  class,  under  the  apprehension  that  they 
might  contribute  to  cramming.  How  just  that  fear 
was  must  appear  evident  to  every  one  who  observes 
the  mischievous  consequences  arising  from  the  practice 
of  giving  notes  now  adopted  in  all  the  Indian  colleges. 
Th3  students  of  the  present  day  never  open  their 
mouths  in  the  class-room — unless,  indeed,  it  is  to 
make  a  noise.  They  take  down  the  professor's  words, 
commit  them  to  memory — often  without  understand- 
ing them — and  reproduce  them  in  the  examination 
hall.  A  copying-machine  would  do  the  same.  An- 
other feature  in  the  educational  system  pursued  in 
the  General  Assembly's  Institution  was  the  judicious 
mixture  of  science  with  literature.  At  the  present 
day  the  cry  in  India,  as  in  Europe,  is — physical  science. 
And  many  people  think  it  is  a  new  cry.  But  thirty- 
five  years  ago  Duff  took  his  pupils  through  a  course  of 
pliysical  science,  in  addition  to  a  high  literary  course. 
Mechanics,  hydrostatics,  pneumatics,  optics,  astronomy, 
the  principles  of  the  steam-engine — the  text-books 
generally  being  of  the  science  series  of  Lardner — were 
taught  in  the  college  classes.  A  course  of  lectures  on 
chemistry  was  also  delivered,  accompanied  with  ex- 
periments; the  youthful  and  fascinating  science  of 
geologv  was  studied  on  account  ot  its  bearing  on 
theology ;  while  we  were  so  familiar  with  the  use  of 
the  sextant,  with  Node's  '  Navigation,  and  with  the 
*  Nautical  Almanac,'  that  some  captains  of  ships,  after 
examining  us,  declared  that  some  of  my  class-fellows 
could  guide  a  ship  safely  from  the  Sandheads  to  Ports- 
mouth. The  Bengal  colleges  of  the  present  day  have 
not  yet  advanced  so  far  as  the  General  Assembly's 
Institution  did,  under  the  guidance  of  Duff,  thirty-five 
years  ago." 


^t  35.  SrmiTUAL   AGENCIES   OF   TDE   COLLEGE.  457 

In  all  this,  however,  again  as  in  the  solitary  time 
of  his  founding  the  Mission,  the  intellectual  was  di- 
rected above  all  things,  and  excluding  all  other  imme- 
diate ends,  to  the  spiritual.  A  new  creation  in  Christ 
Jesus  was  what  the  founder  and  the  four  colleagues  of 
like  spirit  with  himself  sought  to  make  every  student, 
while  they  were  sustained  by  the  divinely  given  con- 
sciousness that  they  were  working  for  ages  yet  to 
come,  under  the  only  Leader  with  Whom  a  thousand 
years  are  as  one  day,  against  a  system  which  would 
not  fall,  as  it  had  not  risen,  in  a  night. 

So  when  the  reorganization  of  the  college  was  com- 
plete, several  directly  and  exclusively  spiritual  agencies 
were  called  into  play.  First,  the  public  offices  being 
now  shut  on  the  Sabbath-day,  Dr.  Duff  opened  a  class 
for  the  systematic  study  of  the  Bible  by  thoughtful  and 
religiously  disposed  Bengalees,  who  had  never  studied 
in  a  Christian  college,  and  were  occupied  as  clerks  all 
the  week.  Many  of  that  large  class  were  in  the  habit 
of  visiting  him  and  the  other  missionaries,  as  inquirers, 
in  the  evening.  Every  Sunday  morning,  at  seven 
o'clock,  saw  a  goodly  number  of  young  and  middle- 
aged  Hindoos,  of  the  higher  class,  gathered  in  the 
mission-house  during  the  three  years  which  ended  with 
the  disruption  of  the  Kirk.  Dr.  Wilson  was  doing 
similar  work  in  Western  India.  Never,  probably,  since 
Pantsenus,  the  first  Christian  missionary  to  India,  and 
his  successors  in  the  great  School  of  the  Catechumens, 
evangelized  the  lands  of  the  Me^^Herranean  and  the 
Indian  Ocean  from  Alexandria,  iic*d  there  been  such 
searching  of  the  Scriptures.  The  result  of  that  three 
years'  work  was  that  the  majority  of  the  Hindoo  in- 
quirers expressed  an  intellectual  conviction  of  the  truth 
of  Christianity.  Only  the  Spirit  of  God,  in  direct, 
irresistible  and  expanding  influence,  was  wanting  so  to 
touch  their  hearts  as  to  make  them  dare  the  renun- 


45^  LIFE   OF  DR.   DUFF.  1841. 

ciation  of  father  and  mother,  caste  and  kinship,  for 
Christ.  "  God  is  a  sovereign  God,"  Dr.  Duff  once 
said  of  these  busy  years,  *'  and  at  that  time,  so  far  as 
I  could  judge,  the  grace  of  God's  Spirit  operated  effect- 
ually on  only  one  soul,  to  whom  it  brought  home  witli 
power  the  whole  truth  of  gospel  salvation  through 
Jesus  Christ."  We  shall  come  to  him  and  to  others, 
and  we  shall  see  in  the  coming  years  how  the  seed 
bore  fruit  of  different  kinds  secretly  and  openly. 

For  another  class,  students  who  had  left  college  for 
the  world  but  still  desired  at  once  the  elevating  influ- 
ence of  companionship  with  the  missionaries  and  the 
continuance  of  their  studies,  Dr.  Duff"  opened  a  week- 
day evening  lecturo  in  his  house.  There  they  read, 
in  a  critical  spirit,  those  master-pieces  of  literature 
in  which  were  most  apparent  suggestions  of  good 
thoughts  and  spiritual  ideas  drawing  the  reader  to  the 
higher  life.  Such  were  Guizot's  History  of  Civilization,* 
a  history  of  the  Renaissance  and  Reformation  which 
had  gained  the  pr  Tered  by  the  French  Academy, 

and   John  Foster'^  ?.      This,  too,  proved  most 

popular.  The  olu.^  r\  ^ad  yet  to  be  cared  for, 
Hindoos  who  had  le^  ch  jjge  just  before  or  at  Dr. 
Duff's  arrival,  who  remeinhercd  the  lectures  of  1831-4, 
and  desired  to  renew  their  investigations.  For  such  he 
delivered  a  weekly  lecture  in  a  side-room  of  the  Insti- 
tution, on  the  leading  points  of  a  complete  system  of 
mental  and  moral  philosophy,  leading  up  to  religion, 
natural  and  revealed.  Here  his  remembrance  of  the 
famous  series  of  Chalmers  at  St.  Andrews,  in  which  he 
had  been  the  foremost  man,  stimulated  the  missionary. 


*  The  Protestant  missionaries  in  China  have  just  issued  the  pro- 
spectus of  fifty-one  treatises  to  be  written  for  the  people  of  China 
and  Japan,  by  the  ablest  Sinologues.  Dr.  Williamson  is  engaged  on 
a  History  of  Civilization  for  this  Chinese  encyclopcedia  of  pure  and 
Christian  literature. 


JEt  35.        FEMALE   EDUCATION    AND   HINDOO    WIDOWS.         459 

He  brought  his  large  audience  of  thoughtful  hearers  to 
^j\\e  utmost  confines  of  psychological  observation  and 
the  ethical  reason,  and  then  pointed  them  to  "  the 
higher  calculus  of  revealed  truth." 

At  this  time,  too,  he  saw  the  first  streaks  of  the 
dawn  of  that  day  which  he  had  anticipated  ten  years 
before,  when  the  educated  Bengalees  would  demand 
educated  wives,  and  the  increasing  community  of 
native  Christians  would  seek  the  means  of  instruction 
for  their  children.  The  orphan  refuge  for  girls,  begun 
by  Mrs.  Charles,  was  developed  into  an  efficient  Ben- 
galee school  under  the  Ladies'  Society,  and  from  that 
in  later  days,  in  its  two  branches,  many  young  women 
have  gone  forth  to  be  zanana  teachers,  and  the  happy 
wives  and  mothers  of  a  prosperous  Christian  commu- 
nity. The  time  for  more  public  and  direct  aggression 
on  the  ignorance  and  social  oppression  of  the  women 
of  Bengal,  at  least,  was  not  yet.  In  a  noble  building 
planted  just  opposite  Dr.  Duff's  first  college,  and  beside 
the  church  of  his  second  convert,  the  Honble.  Drink- 
water  Bethune,  a  member  of  the  Government,  founded 
a  female  school,  which,  though  no  longer  premature, 
pure  secularism  has  ever  since  blighted.  Yet  the  two 
enlightened  Brahman  landholders  of  Ooterapara,  near 
Calcutta,  had  in  vain  besought  the  State  to  join  them 
in  opening  a  school  for  Bengalee  young  ladies  there. 

But  while  Duff  sought,  in  the  new  orphanage,  to 
prepare  Christian  teachers,  wives  and  mothers  for  the 
future,  as  it  developed  before  his  own  eyes,  he  was  no 
less  active  in  procuring  the  removal  of  legislative  ob- 
structions to  the  freedom  of  women  within  legitimate 
limits.  In  an  official  letter  of  16th  September,  1842,  ho 
expounded  in  detail  the  two  evils  of  infant  betrothal  and 
early  marriage — before  puberty,  often — and  of  the 
prohibition  of  widow  marriage.  The  characteristic  dis- 
belief of  Hindooism,  in  common  with  all  systems  except 


46o  LIFE   OP   DR.    DUFF.  1841. 

Christianity,  in  the  continence  of  man  and  the  purity 
of  woman,  makes  widows  for  life  of  the  infant  girls 
whose  betrothed  have  died.  These,  growing  up  de- 
spised, ill-treated  and  overworked,  become  the  centre 
of  the  household  and  village  intrigues  which  fill  the  re- 
cords of  the  criminal  courts  of  India,  and  the  mainstay 
of  the  thousand  groat  shrines  to  which  pilgrimages  are 
made  from  vast  distances  and  am: a  incredible  hardships 
all  over  the  peninsula.  Weary  of  life  and  dissatisfied 
with  herself,  allowed  a  freedom  unknown  to  the  wife 
and  frequently  never  herself  a  wife,  the  Hindoo  widow 
vainly  seeks  peace  at  the  hands  of  the  touting  priest, 
who  strips  her  of  her  all — even  of  what  honour  she 
may  have  left — in  the  name  of  the  Yaishuava  deity. 
Or  slie  courts  rest  at  the  bottom  of  the  village  well. 
Add  to  this  the  state  of  wives  who  are  no  wives,  of 
the  Koolin  Brahman's  hundreds  of  wives,  some  of 
them  whole  families  of  mother  and  daughters,  and 
we  have  an  idea  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  problems 
wliicli  Christian  education  faced  in  even  orthodox 
Hindoos.  AVith  satisfaction  did  Dr.  Duff  observe  the 
discussion  of  these  in  the  vernacular  newspapers, 
and  the  formation,  so  early  as  1842,  of  "a  secret 
society  among  the  educated  Hindoos  for  privately 
instructing  their  young  daughters  and  other  female 
relatives." 

On  the  other  side  he  had,  before  this,  described  his 
administration  of  the  ordinance  of  Christian  baptism 
to  the  first  boy  of  his  third  convert,  Gopeenath 
Nundi :  *'The  Christian  Hindoo  father  stood  forth, 
in  the  presence  of  his  countrymen,  some  of  whom 
had  formerly  been  either  his  pupils  or  companions, 
holding  in  his  arms  the  infant  whom  he  desired 
solemnly  to  consecrate  to  his  God  and  Saviour.  Be- 
side him  stood  the  Christian  Hindoo  mother,  holding 
by  the  right  hand  her  firstborn,  a  little  girl  of  three 


^t.  ZS-  THE    CHRISTIAN    FAMILY.  46 1 

years.  And  tliero,  in  the  presence  of  God  and  man, 
did  both  parents  unite  in  taking  upon  themselves  the 
most  sacred  vows  and  obligations  to  bring  up  their 
little  one  in  the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord." 
Thus,  in  the  heart  of  the  Brahmanism  of  Bengal,  there 
was  growing  up  the  sweet  plant  of  the  Ciiristian 
family.  And  the  agitation  against  the  legal  prohibi- 
tion of  widow  marriage,  begun  in  these  years,  bore  its 
fruit  iu  the  Act  of  Lord  Dalhousio  and  Sir  Barnes 
Peacock,  which,  just  before  the  Mutiny,  removed  all 
legal  obstructions  to  the  marriage  of  Hindoo  widows. 

While  thus  sowing  joy  for  generations  to  come.  Dr. 
and  Mrs.  Duff  were  called  to  bear  the  bitterness  worse 
than  death — the  sudden  blow  of  the  removal  of  one  of 
their  own  children  far  away  from  themselves.  Long 
separation  and  frequent  death  form  the  oft-repeated 
tragedy  of  Anglo-Indian  life.  That  is  none  the  less 
bitter  that  it  occurs  so  often,  and  seems  all  the  more 
cruel  that  the  dearest  friends  who  have  never  left  home 
can  only  half  sympathise  with  the  sufferers.  Duff's  im- 
pulsive, continuously  imj^etuous  affection  rushed  forth 
to  all  his  friends  and  converts,  but  it  flowed  in  a  rapid 
and  deep  stream  towards  his  family.  In  Dr.  Brunton 
he  had  made  a  friend  to  whom  he  poured  forth  all  the 
fulness  of  his  heart  in  private  letters,  often  side  by 
side  with  his  ofiQ.cial  correspondence.  Thus  did  thoy 
write  each  other,  and  thus  did  Dr.  Duff,  in  his  own 
sorrow,  comfort  the  venerable  and  still  surviving  lad\% 
Mrs.  Briggs,  of  St.  Andrews,  whose  gift  he  employed 
in  the  mission  work  : — 

"Edinbuugh  College,  2nd  Juno,  1841. 

"  My  Dear  Dr.  Duff, — I  had  counted  upon  commenciug  my 
letter  by  this  mail  with  an  appeal  which  would,  I  well  know, 
be  readily  responded  to,  for  your  sympathy  and  condolence 
under  our  sore  bereavement.  But,  in  the  unsearchable  counsels 
of  God,  I  am  called,  on  the  other  hand,  to  offer  ours  to  you. 


462  LIFE    OP   DR.    DUFI\  1841. 

Our  heavenly  Father  has  called  little  Aune  to  Himself.  I  need 
not  detail  the  circumstauces.  I  know  that  more  than  ouo 
afTi'ctionato  friend  intends  to  transmit  them  to  you.  Nor  do 
I  need  to  remind  you  what  are  the  duties  to  which,  after  the 
first  sore  burst  of  anguish,  you  will  feel  yourself  called.  I 
write  merely  o  assure  you  that  the  little  sufl'crer  had  every 
human  resource  which  you  yourself  could  have  desired.  !Mrs. 
Campbell  watched  her  with  maternal  care.  The  best  medical 
skill  of  Edinburgh  was  promptly  and  affectionately  bestowed 
on  her.  We  have  laid  her  in  Dr.  Inglis's  burial  place,  close 
to  the  spot  of  his  own  hallowed  rest. 

"I  will  mix  up  no  other  theme  with  this.  The  little  which 
I  had  to  say  on  business  I  address  to  Mr.  Ewart.  I  am  sure 
you  will  not  misunderstand  me,  as  if  I  imagined  that,  even 
under  this  sore  trial,  you  would  cease  for  a  day  to  labour  in 
your  Master's  work.  On  the  contrary,  I  know  by  experience 
that  such  labour  is  most  wholesome  medicine  in  huraaji  sorrow. 
But  you  are  well  entitled  to  judge  for  yourself  at  what  precise 
time  and  in  what  proportion  you  are  best  able  to  bear  the 
medicine.  Mr.  Webster  happened  to  be  here  from  Aberdeen 
on  Assembly  duty ;  and  nothing  could  exceed  his  devotedness 
in  doing  all  that  was  kind  and  useful.  He  has  written  to  you, 
I  believe ;  as  has  also  Dr.  Abercrombie.  Miss  Stevenson  (the 
writer's  niece)  communicates  with  Mrs.  Duff  by  this  despatch. 
My  dear  friend,  my  prayers  and  my  best  wishes  are  with  you. 
May  God  Himself  sustain  and  cheer  you  !  Yours  affection- 

ately, "  Alexander  Brunton." 

"Calcutta,  Cornwallis  Square,  17th  August,  1841. 
"  My  Dear  Dr.  Bhunton, — How  strikingly  did  the  mournful 
intelligence  by  the  last  overland  make  me  realize  the  force  of 
the  humble  but  expressive  adage,  *  a  fi'iend  in  need  is  a  friend 
indeed.'  Often,  often,  have  I  in  retrospect  watched  with  wonder 
and  delight  the  manifold  acts  of  personal  kindness  shown  to 
me  by  yourself  and  Miss  Stevenson.  And  I  assure  you  that, 
unable,  in  the  deep  sincerity  of  my  heart,  to  find  anything  in 
myself  worthy  of  such  kindnesses,  I  have  been  ever  led  to  ascribe 
it  all  to  the  special  grace  and  favour  of  God  my  heavenly 
Father,  who  hath  been  pleased  in  His  sovereign  mercy  to 
raise  up  unto  mo  friends  in  so  peculiar  a  sense.  But  oh,  me- 
thinks  your  last  attentions  to  our  da"ling  and  beloved  chilu 


^Et.  35,       ON  THE  DEATH  OP  HIS  CHILD.         463 

were,  if  possible,  the  kindest  acts  of  all,  attentions  paid  too 
amid  your  own  sore,  sore  domestic  bereavements.  It  were  to 
afTect  a  stoicism  alien  to  my  nature  were  I  to  pretend  that  the 
affliction  lias  been  to  us  a  lij^lit  one.  Oh  no,  it  was  one  of  the 
heaviest  that  could  possibly  have  befallen.  Even  now,  after 
the  interval  of  nearly  a  month,  the  vivid  realization  of  it 
brought  about  by  my  writing  this  note  scarcely  allows  me  to 
proceed.  The  tears  flow  now  as  copiously  as  on  the  day  of 
the  unexpected  intelligence.  But  do  not,  my  dear  father 
and  friend  in  the  Lord,  do  not  conclude  that  these  are  tears 
of  murmuring  or  complaint  against  the  will  and  act  of  my 
heavenly  Father.  Oh  no,  they  are  the  meltings  of  the  poor 
weak  human  heart  of  a  fond  parent,  still  smarting  under  the 
rod  of  my  heavenly  Father's  chastisement.  I  can  truly  say  that 
if  these  past  weeks  have  been  fertile  in  natural  sorrow,  they 
have  also  been  still  more  fertile  in  spiritual  joy.  Every  thought 
of  my  departed  darling  child  is  associated  with  the  thought  l  ' 
heaven — the  home  of  the  weary  pilgrim  of  Zion,  and  the  re- 
membrance of  Tlim  who  hath  gone  before  to  prepare  mansions 
of  glory  for  all  His  faithful  followers.  I  have  felt  more  in  the 
communion  of  the  Divine  lledeemer  and  its  fellowship  with  the 
redeemed  in  glory,  than  I  have  experienced  for  some  time  past. 
Still  may  I  say,  it  was  good  for  me  to  have  been  thus  afflicted. 

"It  was  a  kind  thought  01  your  .,  and  in  beautiful  harmony 
with  all  your  other  refined  and  delicate  consideration  for  human 
feelings,  to  have  our  little  one  laid  beside  the  man  for  whoso 
memory  beyond  all  others  I  cherish  the  deepest  veneration. 
Kindest  and  best  thanks  to  dear  Mrs.  Inglis  and  family  for 
their  ready  consent.  Also  my  warmest  thanks  to  the  com- 
mittee for  their  tribute  of  respect.  I  think  far  more  of  their 
act  of  favour  in  behalf  of  the  departed  than  if  they  had  be- 
stowed thousands  on  the  living.    May  the  Lord  reward  you  all. 

"  The  enclosed  business  note  for  Dr.  Gordon  I  leave  open,  that 
you  may  peruse  its  contents,  and  lend  your  aid  in  accelerating 
the  object  solicited.  Before  this  reach  you,  the  Madras  events 
will  have  cheered  you.  We  have  reason  to  bless  God  and 
take  courage.  It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  Satan  will  sur- 
render this  long-possessed  realm  without  a  deadly  struggle. 
Tour  report  to  the  Assembly  has  been  very  soothing  and 
cheering  :  may  the  Lord  bless  its  difll'usion.  The  enclosed 
you  will  kindly  hand  over  to  Mr.  Inglis;  it  also  contains  one 


4^4  LlFia    OF   DE.    DUFF.  1841, 

for  bis  mother,  Mrs.  Dr.  Inglis.  This  reminds  me  of  what  I 
often  intended  to  ask;  could  you  net  manage  to  procure  for  us 
a  bust  (or  even  a  print,  if  that  cannot  be  had)  of  Dr.  Inglis,  to 
be  set  up  in  the  library  of  our  Institution  ?  Surely  nothing 
could  be  more  appropriate.  With  heartfelt  thanks  and  re- 
membrances to  Miss  Stevenson,  Mrs.  Stevenson,  and  love  to 
my  dear  young  friends  the  Borrowmans,  I  am  ever  gratefully 
and  affectionately,  "  Alexandeu  Duvf." 

"  Uth  November,  1841. 

"  My  Dear  Mrs.  Brigqs, — It  was  indeed  kind  of  you — more 
than  kind — amid  your  own  aflfliction  and  sore  bereavement,  to 
remember  one  so  distant  and  so  unworthy.  The  announce- 
ment of  the  death  of  your  dear  husband  I  had  noticed,  and 
longe  1  to  learn  some  particulars  relative  to  his  latter  end. 
This  I  was  disposed  to  ask  for  as  a  favour  at  your  own  hands. 
But  you  more  than  anticipated  me.  And  your  doing  so,  un- 
solicited and  unprompted,  enhances  the  favour  a  hundred-fold. 
That  you  had  *  much  comfort  in  his  death,  which  was  that  of 
the  Christian  enjoying  peace  in  believing;' — ah,  my  friend, 
these  simple  but  touching  and  thrilling  words  in  your  letter 
did  cause  tears  of  joy  to  flow  from  eyes  which,  in  these  heathen 
climes,  seldom  find  matter  but  for  tears  of  sorrow,  and  a  song 
of  grateful  thanks  to  ascend  to  the  Father  of  spirits  from  a 
heart  which,  though  vexed  daily  and  almost  hardened  by  the 
freezing  obduracy  of  the  votaries  of  idolatry,  has  not  yet 
(blessed  be  God)  wholly  lost  its  sensibilities  or  its  sympathies 
with  the  great  Christian  brotherhood.  To  sleep  in  Jesus,  to 
die  in  the  Lord,  oh,  is  not  this  the  top  and  flower  of  all 
other  blessings  here  below  ?  What  more  could  the  expanded 
souls  of  the  ransomed  in  glory,  what  more  could  the  burning 
desires  of  a  seraph  long  for  on  behalf  of  sinful  mortal  man, 
than  that  he  should  fall  asleep  in  Jesus  ?  This  being  the  case 
with  your  departed  husband,  while,  if  I  met  you,  I  could  not 
help  weeping  along  with  you,  could  not  help  the  outgush  of 
nature's  tenderness  and  nature's  regrets,  I  should  also  soon 
be  constrained  to  mingle  joy  with  my  weeping  on  account  of 
the  ascended  and  ransomed  spirit.  And  in  order  to  die  the 
death  of  the  righteous,  oh,  may  it  be  ours  to  live  the  life  of 
the  righteous,  to  be  united  to  Christ  by  a  living  faith,  to  be 
grafted  on  Him  as  a  liviiiy  branch,  to  be  built  up  in  Him  as  a 


^t.  35.  LETTER   TO   A   LADY.  465 

livinrj  stone,  to  be  replenished,  through  the  energy  and  in- 
working  of  His  Almighty  Spirit,  with  that  grace  now  which 
shall  ripen  into  glory  hereafter.  These,  my  dearly  beloved 
friend,  these  are  amongst  the  blessings  which  constitute  the 
heritage  and  possession  of  God's  own  children. 

"As  to  your  remembering  me  by  the  large  munificence  of  a 
Christian  heart,  as  well  as  the  kindness  of  a  Christian's  holiest 
wishes,  I  know  not  what  to  say.  Coming  from  one  whose  noble 
and  (considering  the  arduous  circumstances  of  the  case),  I  will 
add,  heroic  example  of  piety  I  was  wont  to  admire  and  gather 
strength  from  when  yet  a  feeble  neophyte  myself,  I  cannot 
doubt  the  heartfelt  kindliness  of  the  motive,  and  dare  not 
therefore  refuse.  In  the  spirit  of  Christian  love  that  pi'omptcd 
the  token  of  remembrance,  I  cannot  but  accept  it  as  sent  to 
me  by  the  Lord,  through  the  instrumentality  of  one  of  His 
own  chosen  ones.  And  I  pray  God  that  I  may  be  privileged 
to  employ  it  in  such  way  as  may  best  promote  His  own  glory 
and  honour.  Recompense  you  on  earth  I  cannot;  I  can  only 
pray  that  the  God  of  all  grace  may  continue  to  shower  upon 
you  still  richer  effusions  of  His  fatherly  loving-kindness,  and 
in  the  world  to  come  reward  you  a  hundred-fold.  And  to  all 
your  other  kindnesses,  oh,  deny  me  not  the  crowning  ore,  to 
remember  me  in  your  daily  petitions  at  a  throne  of  grace,  that 
the  Lord  may  uphold  me  in  His  strength,  and  cause  His 
pleasure  more  abundantly  to  prosper  in  my  unworthy  hands. 

"  Amid  much  to  humble  we  have  much  to  cheer  us  here.  Tho 
other  day  we  joyously  admitted  a  young  Brahman,  of  whose 
faith  in  the  atoning  sacrifice  of  the  Divine  Redeemer  we  had 
ample  evidence,  into  the  communion  of  Christ's  visible  Church. 
But  as  Dr.  Brunton  will  probably  publish  some  portion  of  tho 
account  I  sent  him,  I  need  say  no  more  here.  Is  Miss  Grace  still 
with  you  ?  Often,  often,  do  I  blend  my  being  with  ten  thou- 
sand recollections  of  St.  Andrews.  There  I  passed  some  of  my 
earlier  days  of  sin  and  folly,  and  shameful  neglect  of  God  and 
salvation.  There,  too,  the  Lord  was  pleased  to  rescue  me  as 
a  brand  from  the  burning.  Oh,  praised  be  His  Holy  Name. 
Were  I  to  name  the  many  men  in  whom  I  feel  the  deepest  in- 
terest, and  to  whom  I  would  beg  to  be  remembered,  my  whole 
paper  would  be  filled.  The  Lord  bless  you,  and  enrich  you, 
and  ennoble  you  more  and  more  by  the  shining  of  His  grace. 
Yours  gratefully  and  affectionately,        "Alexander  Duff." 

n  u 


466  LIFE   OP  DE.   DUFF.  184 1. 

In  the  year  1838,  when  Dr.  Duff  was  in  the  press  of 
his  home  operations,  the  news  came  from  Nuddea,  a 
county  fifty  miles  to  the  north  of  Calcutta,  of  large 
additions  of  Hindoo  and  Muhammadan  peasants  to 
the  Church.  In  1830  he  had  visited  the  spot,  among 
other  parts  of  rural  Bengal,  only  to  decide  that  he  must 
begin  the  Scottish  Mission  in  Calcutta,  and  from  that 
as  a  base  extend  his  influence.  In  1832  the  Church 
Missionary  Society  opened  a  school  in  Krishnaghur, 
the  county  town,  and  baptized  five  students  in  the  first 
twelve  months.  By  1838,  whole  villages  with  their 
head  men  had  sought  instruction,  and  hundreds  of 
earnest  men  and  women,  under  purely  spiritual  in- 
fluences, were  baptized,  and  proved  their  sincerity  by 
suffering  persecution  unmoved.  Then  there  came  into 
operation  motives  of  a  more  mixed  character.  The 
river  Jellinghi,  one  of  three  streams  into  which  the 
mighty  Ganges  spills  over  so  as  to  form  the  united 
Hooghly  on  which  Calcutta  stands,  inundated  the  dis- 
trict and  swept  off"  the  rice  harvest.  The  result  was  a 
local  famine,  from  too  much  water,  such  as  we  have 
twice  witnessed  since  that  year.  There  was  no  rail- 
way to  pour  in  food  as  now,  no  machinery  to  link  the 
million  of  sufferers  with  the  charity  of  Great  Britain, 
no  prudent  anticipation  on  the  part  of  the  authorities. 
The  work  of  relief  fell,  as  usual,  on  the  few  mis- 
sionaries, English  and  German,  who  sailed  over  the 
inundated  plains  of  an  area  as  large  as  Lincolnshire, 
distributing  rice  to  the  dying  and  lending  small  sums 
to  those  who  could  thus  struggle  through  the  crisis. 
The  result  was  precisely  what  Madras  and  Mysore  have 
recently  displayed  on  a  greater  scale.  The  evangeliza- 
tion of  the  previous  six  years,*  acted  on  by  gratitude 

*  The  Trident,  the  Crescent,  and  the  Cross  (1876),  by  the  Rev. 
James  Vauglian,  who  is  now  again  building  up  the  Church  at 
Krishnaghur  amid  many  difficulties. 


^t.  35-  THE  NEW  SECT,  "WORSHirrEIiS  OF  THE  CREATOR."  467 

for  the  humanity  and  symjathy  shown,  bore  both 
natural  and  spiritual  fruit  in  the  profession  of  Chris- 
tianity by  thousands.  On  one  occasion  Bishop  Wilson 
presided  at  the  baptism  of  nine  hundred  Hindoos 
and  Muhammadans.  Dr.  Duff  drew  up  a  document 
explaining  the  movement  to  the  churches  at  home. 
Judging  from  analogy  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
Krishnaghur  and  the  rich  sugar,  indigu,  oilseed  and 
jute  districts  of  the  Hooghly  Delta  would  by  this  time 
have  been  what  the  Tinnevelly  Church  has  become,  in 
similar  circumstances,  had  the  missionaries  not  com- 
paratively deserted  it  before  the  infant  church  had 
been  consolidated  and  had  produced  its  own  tried  and 
trained  pastors.  As  it  is,  the  large  nominal  Christian 
descendants  of  the  first  converts,  among  whom  caste 
has  crept  and  the  sacerdotalism  of  Jesuit  priests 
recognising  caste,  is  being  again  evangelized,  like  the 
lapsed  sections  of  our  own  cities  and  mining  and 
manufacturing  districts. 

But  there  was  another  providential  preparation  for 
the  rapid  creation  of  the  Krishnaghur  Church.  When 
Eammohun  Roy  was  feeling  after  God,  as  we  have 
already  told,  among  the  learned  of  Burdwan  and  Cal- 
cutta who  knew  Sanscrit  and  English,  there  was  a 
villager  of  the  cowherd  caste  in  Ghospara,  near  Krish- 
naghur, who  in  the  Bengalee  vernacular  admitted 
neophytes  to  a  new  sect  on  the  payment  of  a  rupee 
and  the  recitation  of  this  Muntra,  or  combined  creed 
and  charm — "0  sinless  Lord.  0  great  Lord,  at  thy 
pleasure  I  go  and  return;  not  a  moment  am  I  without 
thee;  I  am  ever  with  thee.  Save,  0  great  Lord." 
E-amchurn  Pal  was  really  a  follower  of  the  great 
reformer  Chaitunya,  but  he  set  up  a  new  sect  which 
recognised  Jiim  as  the  incarnation  of  Krishna  rather 
than  the  character  which  he  professed.  The  Gooroo, 
or  teacher,  was  the  sinless  lord,  entitled  to  all  the 


468  LIFE   OF  DR.    DUl'T.  1842. 

spiritual  power  and  offerings.  This  new  sect  of 
Vaisbnavas  called  themselves  Kharta-bhajas,  or  wor- 
shippers of  the  Creator.  They  ate  together  twice  a 
year  ignoring  caste,  and  gained  over  many  women  and 
infirm  persons  by  the  belief  that  the  Muntra  removed 
barrenness  and  disease.  Such  is  the  account  of  tho 
Gooroo's  contemporary,  Mr.  Ward,  of  Serampore.* 
In  this  its  first  stage,  before  the  denunciatio:  of 
caste  had  given  place  to  free  love,  as  in  many  such 
sects,  and  the  cessation  of  idol-worship  had  been 
followed  by  the  substitution  of  one  god  for  another, 
the  new  teaching  sent  many  to  swell  tlie  ranks  of 
true  but  uninstructed  Christians. 

To  a  careful  study  of  the  Kharta-bhajas,  with,  the 
view  of  founding  a  mission  among  them,  Dr.  Duff 
devoted  the  college  vacation  of  1840-41,  and  again  of 
1841-42.  As  the  guest  of  the  Church  missionary, 
Mr.  Alexander,  he  was  at  the  head-quarters  both  of 
the  sect  and  of  Christian  operations.  In  discussing 
vernacular  education,  helping  to  spread  village  schools 
and  frequent  meetings  with  both  the  Christians  and 
the  Kharta-bhajas,  two  months  passed  away.  He 
signalized  his  farewell  by  a  simple  feast  to  the  Chris- 
tians of  one  station,  at  which  five  hundred  squatted, 
oriental  fashion,  before  piles  of  curry  and  rice  and  the 
fruits  of  the  cold  season,  spread  out  on  the  soft  green 
leaves  of  the  plantain-tree,  and  deftly  conveyed  to  the 
mouth  with  two  forefingers  and  thumb.  So  the  Hishis 
ate  on  the  ancestral  Aryan  tabhJand.  But  here  were 
also  women  and  children,  and  glad  sounds  of  praise 
arose  to  the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour, 


*  Vol.  ii.,  page  175,  of  A  View  of  the  History,  Literattire,  and  My- 
thology  of  the  Hindoos  (1818,  second  edition),  by  W.  Ward.  A 
work  now  of  some  rarity,  and  drawn  upon  by  not  a  few  writers 
without  due  acknowledgment. 


^t  36.      THE  NEW  STATIONS  AT  CULNA  AND  GllOsrARA.      469 

Jesus  Christ.  Dr.  Duff  was  intensely  human,  rejoicing 
as  much  in  the  social  feast  of  the  lately  christianized 
families,  in  its  way,  as  in  their  solemn  acts  of  pure 
worship.  Desirous  to  concentrate  his  mission  on  the 
left  bank  of  the  river,  Mr.  Alexander  urged  his  Pres- 
byterian guest  to  take  possession  of  Culra,  opposite, 
once  the  great  port  of  fertile  Burdwan,  and  still  a 
pilgrim  town  of  50,000  inhabitants,  where  the  per- 
petual lease  of  a  piece  of  ground  had  been  secured. 
After  inspecting  the  place.  Dr.  Duff  dropped  down 
the  Hooghly  to  Ghospara,  now  three  miles  from  the 
railway  station  of  Kanchrapara.  There,  in  a  mango 
tope  or  grove,  he  visited  the  Gooroo  of  the  Kharta- 
bhajas.  Surrounded  by  his  disciples,  the  son  of 
Ramchurn  made  a  statement  of  his  faith  to  the  mis- 
sionary sitting  upon  the  simple  "  charpoy "  or  low 
couch-bed  of  the  East,  and  willingly  granted  him, 
in  perpetuity,  a  lease  of  land  for  a  Christian  school 
and  church.  From  the  fifty  thousand  pilgrims  who 
twice  a  year  crowd  to  the  "  cold  sea"  or  pool  whose 
waters  had  healed  the  wife  of  their  Gooroo,  and  to  the 
sacred  pomegranate-tree  under  which  she  was  buried,* 
he  thought  to  gather  many  to  Christ. 

But  where  were  the  missionaries  for  the  rural 
stations,  thus  increased  to  three — Takee,  Culna  and 
Ghospara  ?  In  the  first,  Mr.  Clift  had  been  succeeded 
by  Mr.  W.  C.  Fyfe,  sent  out  from  Scotland  as  an 
educationist  and  subsequently  ordained,  so  that  he  is 
now  the  senior  missionary  in  Bengal.  Happily  the 
college  in  Calcutta,  which,  in  1830,  had  begun  with  the 
Lord's  Prayer  in  Bengalee,  the  English  alphabet,  and 
the  slow  spelling  out  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
and  had  given  its  first  four  converts  to  the  Angli- 
can,  American    Presbyterian    and    Congregationalist 

•  A  Statistical  Account  of  Bengal  (1876),  vol.  ii.,  p.  63. 


470  WFE   OP   DB.    DUFF.  1842. 

Churches,  because  the  Kirk  was  not  prepared  to 
utilize  them,  was  producing  the  ripest  spiritual  fruit. 
Established  to  sway  towards  Christ,  and  by  Christ, 
the  whole  revolution  of  thought  and  feeling  which  the 
English  language  and  the  British  administration  had 
set  in  motion  and  were  hurrying  away  from  all  faith 
and  morals.  Dr.  Duff  felt  that  his  college  would  be 
an  immediate  failure  if  it  did  not  bring  in  individual 
souls  and  raise  an  indigenous  missionary  ministry. 
Before  idl  other  agencies  for  educated  Hindoos,  his 
system  had,  in  1830-1834,  accomplished  both  results. 
Nor  had  it  ceased  to  do  so  in  his  absence,  while  his 
return  gave  it  a  new  impetus.  "Whether  we  look  at 
the  spiritual  or  the  intellectual  character  of  the  young 
men;  whether  we  consider  what  they  sacrificed  for 
Christ,  or  what  He  enabled  them  to  become  in  His 
work,  we  may  assert  that  no  Christian  mission  can 
show  such  a  roll  of  converts  from  the  subtlest  system 
of  a  mighty  faith  and  an  ancient  civilization  as  Dr. 
Duff's  college  in  the  first  thirteen  years  of  its  history. 
We  begin  with  the  one  failure — let  the  truth  be  told, 
but  tenderly.  In  1837,  Dwarkanath  Bhose,  at  the  age 
of  seventeen,  was  baptized.  No  convert  witnessed  so 
good  a  confession  as  he,  if  persecution  be  the  test.  He 
was  the  Peter  of  the  band.  Thrice  carried  off  by  his 
bigoted  family,  chained  and  imprisoned  till  Mr.  Leith's 
services  in  the  Supreme  Court  were  necessary  to  en- 
force toleration,  he  clung  to  his  convictions.  So  bright 
a  student  did  he  become  that  he  was  one  of  the  four 
Bengalees  selected  by  Government  to  complete  their 
medical  studies  in  London.  Was  it  there  that,  like  not  a 
few  of  his  countrymen  since,  he  found  the  temptations 
of  a  great  city,  in  which  he  was  alone,  overpowering  ? 
With  the  highest  professional  honours  he  returned  to 
practice  in  Calcutta,  where  he  fell  a  victim  to  the 
vice  which  our  excise  system  has  taught  the  educated 


^t.  i6.  THE  NEW  CONVERTS.  47 1 

Datives  of  India,  when  it  plants  the  licensed  wine-shop 
beside  the  Christian  school.  We  visited  him  in  his  fatal 
sickness.  "Who  shall  say  that,  like  Peter  also,  he  did 
not  rise,  ever  so  little,  from  his  fall  ?  It  i^  not  English 
Christians,  at  least,  who  can  judge  'iira.  Bather  lot  us 
judge  our  own  wani}  of  faitb  and  charity  towa^'dp  India ; 
our  own  administration  wnich,  now  purged  of  most 
other  debasing  tendencies  and  immoral  monopolies, 
still  uses  the  whole  power  of  the  State  to  secularise 
public  instruction,  and  to  raise  an  annually  increasing 
revenue  by  spreading  drink  and  drug  licences  far  and 
wide  over  India  and  even  China.  The  missionaries 
were  used  to  make  Dwarkanath  Bhose  the  noble  con- 
vert and  accomplished  student  he  was  when  he  landed 
on  our  shores — who  is  responsible  for  the  rest  ? 

A  fellow-student  of  Dwarkanath' s  would  have  stood 
by  his  side  in  baptism.  Laid  low  by  fever  he  sent  for 
his  companions,  declared  to  them  that  he  believed  in 
Christ,  and  died  before  he  could  be  baptized.  He  was 
one  of  a  large  class  of  secret  Christians,  who  have 
been  known  to  baptize  each  other  in  the  last  hour. 
The  bloom  of  the  Mission,  intellectually  and  spiritually, 
was  also  cut  off  by  an  early  death — two  converts  who 
lived  and  worked  long  enough  to  become  the  David 
and  the  Jonathan  of  the  Church  of  India,  Mahendra 
Lai  Basak  and  Kailas  Chunder  Mookerjea.  Mahendra 
had  entered  Dr.  Duff's  school  in  1831,  at  the  age  of 
nine,  but  was  removed  to  the  Hindoo  College  be- 
cause of  the  direct  Christian  teaching  of  the  former. 
Returning  he  became  so  thoughtful  as  to  alarm  his 
Hindoo  friends,  who  tried  to  seduce  him  to  sins  which, 
they  thought,  would  make  even  the  missionaries  shun 
him.  It  was  in  vain.  He  rose  to  be  the  gold  medalist 
of  the  college,  and  his  demonstrations  of  some  of 
Euclid's  problems  were  so  ingenious  as  to  call  forth 
the  eulogy  of  Professor  Wallace,  of  the  University  of 


472  LIFE   OF   DR.   DUFF.  1842. 

Edinburgh.     But  his  intellectual  power  was  dedicated 
to  the  office  of  the  Christian  ministry.     Baptized  in 
1839,  after  renewed  opposition  from  his  father,  ho  be- 
came the   first  divinity  student   of  the  college.     The 
same  year   saw  him  joined   by   a   Koolin    Brahman, 
Kailas,  T>'ho  had.  gone  through  the  six  years'  course  of 
the  college.     ^iVhcn  on  the  way  with  his  family  to  an 
idolatrous  service,  his  conscience  so  pricked  him  that 
he  fled  to  the  mission-house.     Gentle  and  confiding, 
he  was  deluded  by  solemn  pledges  into  leaving  its  pro- 
tection, when  he  was  kept  in  durance  for  three  months. 
On  escaping  he  was  publicly  baptized  in  the  college 
hall.     After  systematic  theological  training,  the  two 
friends  were  appointed  catechists.     Part  of  their  prac- 
tical training  had  been  to  accompany  the  missionaries 
on  itineracies  through  the  rural  districts  in  the  cold 
season.      Dr.  Duff  thus   described  his  experience  of 
Mahendra,  as  a  preacher,  at  the  beginning  of  1841 : — 
"In  these  rural  itineracies  I  had  much  reason  to 
be  satisfied  with  the  docility,  humble  demeanour,  and 
moral    earnestness   of  my  young  friend,   Mahendra. 
His  tact,  too,  and  management  in  meeting  the  objec- 
tions, and  in  presenting  divine  truth  in  an  intelligible 
form  to  the  minds  of  his  countrymen,  were  such  as  to 
encourage  no  ordinary  expectations  as  to  the  future. 
On  one   occasion   he  displayed   much   eloquence  and 
power.      Standing  on  the  steps  in  front  of  a  temple 
of  Shivii;  in  the  large  town  of  Culna,  we  got  into  a 
long  and  varied  discussion  with  the  Brahmans.     Soon 
an  immense  crowd  was  assembled.      They  professed 
their  readiness  to   listen  to   what  the  SaJieb  had  to 
say;   but  when,  at  my  suggestion,  Mahendra  began 
to  ask  certain  questions,  he  was  at  first  received  with 
a  shout  of  derisive  scorn.     '  What  I '  exclaimed  they, 
*  shall  we  give  ear  to  the  words  of  a  poor  ignorant 
boy?'      With  the  greatest  calmness  and  self-posses- 


JEt.  36.    THE  NOBLEST  OP  ALL  THE  CONVERTS.       473 

sion  Mahendra  replied,  *  Well,  friends,  if  I  am  a  poor 
ignorant  boy,  is  that  not  a  stronger  reason  why  you, 
who  are  so  loarned,  should  take  pity  npon  me,  and 
give  me  the  knowledge  which  you  believe  would  re- 
move my  ignorance.  I  began  to  ask  the  qu  stions, 
not  with  a  view  to  abuse  you,  or  your  faith,  or  to  dis- 
play my  own  learning,  which  is  veiy  little ;  but  simply 
to  know  what  your  creed  really  is,  and  thus  enable  mo 
to  compare  it  with  my  own.'  This  '  soft  answer  '  had 
the  desired  effect.  After  answering  some  questions, 
they  began  to  interrogate  in  return.  In  reply  to  the 
query  respecting  his  faith,  Mahendra  began  by  giving 
a  brief  sketch  of  what  ho  was  by  birth  and  education, 
and  how  he  came  to  renounce  Hindooism  and  embrace 
Christianity.  His  exordium  at  once  caught  the  ear 
and  riveted  the  attention  of  every  one;  and  not  a 
whisper  was  heard  from  the  previously  unruly  and 
nproarious  audience,  when  he  commenced  his  narrative 
by  saying,  '  Countrymen  and  friends,  I  am  a  Hindoo ; 
I  was  born  and  brought  up  a  Hindoo ;  yea,  I  belonged 
to  the  Boistobs,  one  of  the  strictest  sects,  as  you  know, 
among  the  Hindoos.  My  father  was  and  is  a  Boistob ; 
my  mother  was  and  is  a  Boistob;  they  were  both  vory 
careful  in  training  me  up  in  the  knowledge  of  their 
peculiar  creed ;  they  made  me  attend  upon  Radhanath, 
one  of  the  great  pundits  of  the  Boistob  sect ;  at  his 
feet  I  was  brought  up ;  he  laboured  to  imprint  upon 
my  mind  the  doctrines  of  Atma,  Onama,  and  other 
Shasters.*  How  forcibly  the  preliminary  part  of  this 
address  made  me  realize  the  exceeding  naturalness  and 
adaptation  of  the  Apostle's  appeal,  in  somewhat  similar 
circumstances,  and  with  a  view  to  somewhat  similar 
ends !  *  Circumcised  the  eighth  day,  of  the  stock  of 
Israel,  of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin,  an  Hebrew  of  the 
Hebrews ;  as  touching  the  law,  a  Pharisee ! '  How 
forcibly,  too,  did  it  make  me  feel  the  superiority  of  the 


474  I'IFB    OP  DB.    DDFP.  1843. 

vantagc-grouml  on  wliicli  a  qualified  native  must  over 
stand,  when  addressing  his  own  countrymen — his  own 
kinsmen  according  to  the  flesh  I  Oh  that  we  had 
hundreds  of  Mahendras  I — hundreds  exhibiting  similar 
qualifications  of  head  and  heart;  then  might  we  begin 
to  lift  up  our  drooping  heads,  in  the  full  assurance  that 
the  day  of  India's  salvation  was  nigh  at  hand.  At 
tlie  conclusion  of  Mahendra's  long  address  we  dis- 
tributed all  the  tracts  in  our  possession.  We  had 
reached  the  temple  about  five  p.m. ;  it  was  now  eight 
o'clock;  and  the  full  moon,  shining  from  the  deep  blue 
vault  of  an  almost  starless  though  cloudless  sky,  lighted 
us  back  to  our  small  boat  on  the  river.  On  our  way, 
we  overheard  many  remarks  respecting  what  had  been 
said  ;  amongst  others,  the  following :  *  Truly,  he  looked 
a  poor,  ignorant  boy;  but  his  words  showed  him  to  bo 
a  great  pundit.' " 

These  were  the  men,  Mahendra  and  Kailas,  who  were 
placed  in  Grhospara  as  missionaries  to  their  country- 
men. Within  a  few  weeks  of  each  other,  in  the  year 
1845  they  passed  away,  after  services  which  Dr.  Ewart 
and  Mr.  Macdonald  recorded  in  Memoirs  of  them.  So, 
also,  the  amiable  Madub  Chunder  Basak  died  ripe  for 
heaven.  Dr.  Duff  longed  for  hundreds  like  them,  and 
he  did  not  pray  in  vain.  Passing  over  the  baptism 
of  another  Brahman,  of  Kalichurn  Dutt,  and  of  Dr. 
DuflP's  converts  baptized  by  other  Churches,  we  come 
in  1841-3  to  the  conversion  of  the  four  remarkable 
Hindoos  who  lived  to  bo  ordained  ministers  of  the 
Free  Church  of  Scotland,  and  at  Culna  and  other  rural 
stations,  as  well  as  Calcutta  itself,  proved  successful 
missionaries.  The  Rev.  Jugadishwar  Bhattacharjya, 
a  Brahman  of  the  Brahmans,  above  eighteen,  whom  a 
mob  attempted  to  tear  from  the  mission-house,  has 
since  won  the  gratitude  of  his  peasant  coun^^ymen, 
alike  by  his   spiritual  and  his  temporal   services   to 


JFA.  37.  THE   TWELVE    PRINCIPAL   CONVERTS.  475 

them,  having  saved  many  in  the  time  of  famine.  Such 
are  his  knowledge  and  influence,  that  ho  was  selected 
by  Lord  Northbrook  to  give  evidence  before  a  Com- 
mons committee.  The  Rev.  Prosuuno  Koomar  Chat- 
terjca,  once  of  the  same  highest  caste,  has  long  presided 
over  another  of  the  rural  missions  in  Bengal.  The 
Rev.  Lai  Behari  Day,  a  successful  English  author  and 
Government  professor,  who  preaches  regularly  to  the 
Scotsmen  sent  out  to  superintend  the  jute  mills  on  the 
Hooghly,  has  lately  told  the  world  his  "  Recollections  " 
of  the  missionary  who  was  one  of  his  spiritual  fathers. 
Last  of  all,  but  now  no  more,  do  we  linger  over  the 
name  of  the  Rev.  Behari  Lai  Singh,  the  Rajpoot  who 
died  the  only  missionary  in  India  of  the  Presbyterian 
Cburcli  of  Enf]:land.  The  teaching:  which  led  him  to 
sacrifice  all  for  Christ  he  and  his  brother  received  in 
the  college;  the  example  which  afterwards  proved  to 
him  that  Christianity  was  a  living  power  was  that  of 
his  official  superior,  Sir  Donald  M'Leod. 

From  the  converts  made  up  to  1843  we  have  named 
these  twelve — four  in  the  first  period,  eight  in  the 
second — as  the  typical  fruit  of  the  system  directed  by 
the  first  missionary  of  the  Church  of  Scotland  to  the 
destruction  of  Brahmanism  and  the  building  up  of 
the  Church  of  India  by  educated  Hindoos.  The  first, 
Brijonath ;  the  sixth,  seventh,  and  tenth,  Mahendra, 
Kailas,  and  Madliub;  became  early  fruit  of  the  native 
Church  in  heaven,  but  not  before  Mahendra  and  Kailas 
had  done  true  service  for  their  Master.  With  a  joyful 
catholicity  Dr.  Duff  had  given  Krishna  Mohun  to  the 
Church  of  England,  Gopeenath  to  the  American  Pres- 
byterian Church,  Anundo  to  the  London  Mission,  and 
Behari  Lai  to  the  English  Presbyterians.  Of  the 
twelve  not  the  least  brilliant  fell ;  while  we  shall  see 
Gopeenath  witnessing  a  good  confession  in  his  hour 
of  trial  in  the  Mutiny. 


47^  LIFE   OF   DE.    DUl'F.  1843. 

Wliilo  tho  college,  in  spiritual  iufluenco  and  intellec- 
tual force,  with  its  900  students  and  three  brunch 
stations,  was  thus  advancing  to  tno  state  of  efficiency 
in  which  it  closed  for  the  last  time  in  184'3,  all  around 
there  were  then,  as  now,  disaster  and  confusion  in 
public  nffairs.  Thus  longingly  did  Dr.  Duff  dwell  on 
tho  triumphs  of  peace,  and  on  tho  way  which  it  opened 
for  the  Prince  of  peace,  into  the  lands  beyond  our 
frontiers,  then  on  tho  Sutlej  and  tho  Yoina  mountains 
of  Arakan.  How  hopefully,  in  the  Punjab,  the  Karen 
country  and  China,  have  his  anticipations  been  realized. 
What  he  wrote  of  Loi  d  EUenborough  even  may  stand, 
for  he  wrote  it  on  the  17th  October,  1842,  before  the 
Somnath  Gates  proclamation  and  the  Sindli  war, 
Captain  Durand  being  that  Governor-General's  private 
secretary : — 

"  For  the  last  three  years  all  India  has  been  in  a 
state  of  suppressed  ferment  and  smothered  excitement, 
by  the  desolating  warfare  in  Afghanistan  and  China. 
A  permanent  peace  with  Afghanistan  may  prepare  a 
way  of  access  to  the  vast  nomadic  hordes  of  Central 
Asia,  who,  from  time  immemorial,  have  been  the 
conquerors  and  desolators  of  its  fairest  and  richest 
provinces.  The  last  few  years  have  served  to  prove 
that,  though  the  sword  of  war  may  destroy,  it  cannot 
tame  or  subdue  any  portion  of  these  wild  and  lawless 
races.  What  fresh  glory  will  this  shed  on  the  triumphs 
of  the  gospel,  when,  by  the  peaceful  *  sword  of  the 
Spirit,'  these  very  tribes  are  brought  into  willing  sub- 
jection, and  endowed  with  meek  and  iamblike  disposi- 
tions !  A  permanent  peace  with  China  may  open  up 
an  effectual  door  of  ingress  to  more  than  300,000,000 
of  human  beings — one-third  of  the  entire  race  of  man- 
kind I— hitherto  shut  up,  and,  as  it  were,  hermetically 
sealed  against  the  invasion  of  gospel  truth.  How 
mysterious,  and  yet  how  wisely  beneficent  the  ways  of 


JFA.  37.       PEACE  THE  OPPORTUNITY  OP  THE  MISSIONARY.      477 

Divino  Providence !  China  being  sealed  a^^ainst  the 
direct  intrusion  of  Bible  heralds,  the  last  thirty  years 
have  been  chiefly  devoted  by  the  lamented  Morrison 
and  others  to  the  study  of  that  unique  and  solitary 
lingual  gonus,  the  Chine?o  tongue — to  the  investigation 
of  Chinese  antiquities,  literature,  mythology,  and  other 
such  like  subjects  as  tend  to  throw  light  on  the  genius, 
the  character,  the  mental  and  religious  habitudes  of  so 
singular  and  multitudinous  a  people — to  the  prepara- 
tion of  grammars,  and  dictionaries,  and  tructs,  and, 
above  all,  to  the  translation  of  the  Word  of  life,  that 
Book  of  books,  the  Bible.  And  when  the  requisite 
apparatus  for  an  effectual  spiritual  warfare  has  been 
fully  prepared,  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  the  in\menso 
field  for  their  practical  application  has  been  thrown 
open,  by  the  instrumentality  of  one  who  *  meant  not 
so,  neither  did  his  heart  think  so.*  (Isa.  x.  7.)  What 
a  striking  coincidence  I  AYho  dare  say  that  it  :s  for- 
tuitous ?  Oh  no !  It  is  altogether  the  ordination  of 
Him  who  '  knoweth  the  end  from  the  beginning.'  It 
is  one  of  those  marvellous  points  of  confluence  among 
the  manifold  streams  and  currents  of  Providence, 
which  may  flow,  for  years  or  even  ages,  unseen  be- 
neath the  surface,  till  the  *  set  time '  hath  come  for 
their  springing  forth  visibly,  to  bespeak  the  presiding 
presence  of  Him,  who  '  doeth  according  to  His  will 
among  the  armies  of  heaven  and  the  inhabitants  of 
the  earth.* 

"  If  anything  could  enhance  the  joy  which  we  have 
all  experienced  from  the  simple  announcement  *  Peace,* 
it  is  the  language  in  which  the  present  Governor- 
General  has  couched  his  solicitation  for  the  offering  of 
public  prayers  and  thanksgivings  to  Almighty  God 
throughout  all  the  Indian  Ciiurches.  From  the  State 
circular,  penned  by  Lord  Ellenborough  himself,  I  ex- 
tract the  following  passage : — *  The  seasonable  supply 


47^  I-IFB   OP  DE.   DUFF.     .  1843. 

of  rain,  following  our  prayers  recently  offered  to  God 
for  that  blessing,  wliereby  the  people  of  the  North- 
Western  Provinces  have  been  relieved  from  the  fear  of 
impending  famine;  and  the  great  successes  recfntly 
obtained  by  the  British  arms  in  Afghanistan,  whereby 
the  hope  of  honourable  and  secure  peace  is  held  out  to 
India,  impose  upon  us  all  the  duty  of  humble  thanks- 
giving to  Almighty  God,  through  whose  paternal 
goodness  alone  these  events  have  been  brought  to 
pass.  Nor  have  we  less  incurred  the  duty  of  earnest 
supplication,  that  we  may  not  be  led  to  nbuse  these 
last  gifts  of  God's  bounty,  or  to  attribute  to  ourselves 
that  which  is  due  to  Him  alone ;  but  that  He  may  have 
granted  to  us  grace  so  to  improve  these  gifts  to  us, 
to  show  ourselves  worthy  of  His  love,  and  fit  instru- 
ments, in  His  hand,  for  the  government  of  the  great 
nation  which  His  wisdom  has  placed  under  British 
rule.'  These,  surely,  are  sentiments  worthy  of  a 
British  statesman,  and  honourable  to  the  Christian 
head  of  the  most  powerful  empire  in  Asia ! — sentiments, 
embodying  so  solemn  a  recognition  of  Jehovah's  su- 
premacy and  man's  responsibility ; — sentiments  which 
are  sure  to  be  translated  into  all  the  languages,  and 
circulated  among  all  the  nations  of  the  Eastern  world ! 
Oh,  let  all  the  British  Churches  respond,  with  heart 
and  soul,  to  the  voice  of  thanksgiving  and  supplica- 
tion which  is  about  to  be  lifted  up  by  all  the  Churches 
in  India  !  and  pray  that  the  time  may  come,  and  that 
right  speedily,  when  the  outpourings  of  God's  Spirit 
shall  descend  on  this  dry  and  parched  land." 


END  OP  VOL.  I. 


